And We Thought It Was the End
by sunrunner's sword
Summary: Reincarnation is a strange and dangerous thing that toys with the present in hopes that it will somehow turn out like the past, but will the past repeat itself, or will it fail to save the world as we know it from a foe greater than any seen in this word
1. Prolog

  
  
A/N: Who ever thought up the concept of summer vacation, I love you. You're most likely dead, but I love you.   
  
Just as a precaution, this excerpt was about three pages in the book…not really sure how long it's gonna be on the comp, but you _**YOU MUST READ THE HIGHLIGHTED PORTION OR YOU WILL BE LOST LATER ON!!!**_. That said if I get any reviews saying you have absolutely no ides what's going on, I'll smite you. I will strike you down with lightning and leave you to burn in the middle of some random alley. Don't think I won't do it. I can be pretty vicious when I want to be. Don't mess with me.   
  
**_I'LL SAY THIS AGAIN, YOU DO NOT NEED TO READ THIS WHOLE CHAPTER UNLESS YOU WANT A BIT OF BACKGROUND INFO, YOU ONLY NEED TO READ THE HIGHLIGHTED PORTION!!!!!!!!!!!_**   
  
Summary: What's up with Harry? Why are Hermione and Ginny disappearing all the time? Who is this enticing new Gryffindor? And just where in all hells is Ron? Reincarnation is a strange and dangerous thing that toys with the present in hopes that the present will somehow turn out like the past, but will the past repeat itself in this occurrence, or will the reincarnation of the great King Arthur fail to save the world as we know it from a foe greater than any seen in this word yet?   
  
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.   
  


* * *

  
  
And We Thought it Was the End   


Prolog

  
Swallowed by the Mists

  
  
**An excerpt from The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley:**   
  
_"Arthur! Arthur, stand to the challenge, or do you fear me too much?"   
  
"No man can say that I ever ran from a challenge." Arthur turned as Gwydion came from the wood. "So," he said, "it is you, Mordred. I nevermore than half believed that you had turned against me till now when I see it with my own eyes. I thought those who told me so thought to undermine my courage by telling me the worst that could befall. What have I done? Why have you become my enemy? Why, my son?"   
  
"Do you truly believe that I was anything else my father?" He spoke the word with the greatest bitterness. "For what else was I begotten and born, but for this moment when I challenge you for a cause that is no longer within the borders of this world? I no longer even know why I am to challenge you- only that there is nothing else left in my life but for this hatred."   
  
Arthur said quietly, "I knew Morgaine hated me, but I did not know she hated me as much as this. Must you do her will even in this Gwydion?"   
  
"Do you think it is her will I do you ool?" Gwydion snarled. "If anything could bid me spare you it is that- that I do Morgaine's will, that she wishes you overthrown, and I know not whether I hate more her or you. . . ."   
  
And then stepping forth into their dream or vision or whatever it might be, I knew that I stood on the shores of the Lake where they challenged each other, stood between them clad in the robes of a priestess.   
  
"Must this be? I call upon you both, in the name of the Goddess to amend your quarrel. I sinned against you Arthur and against you Gwydion, but your hate is for me, not for each other, and in the name of the Goddess I beg of you-"   
  
"What is the Goddess to me?" Arthur tightened his fist on the hilt of Excalibur. "I saw her always in your face, but you turned away from me, and when the Goddess rejected me, I sought another God. . . ."   
  
And Gwydion looked on me with contempt, "I needed not the Goddess, but the woman who mothered me, and you put me into the hands of one who had no fear of and Goddess or God."   
  
I tried to cry out, "I had no choice! I did not choose-" but they came at each other with their swords, rushing through me as if I were made of air, and it seemed that their swords met in my body. . . and then I was in Avalon again, staring in horror at the mirror where I could see nothing, nothing but the widening stain of blood in the sacred waters of the Well. My mouth was dry and my heart pounding as if it would beat a hole in the walls of my chest, and the taste of ruin and death was bitter on my lips.   
  
I had failed, failed, failed! I was false to the Goddess, if indeed there was ay Goddess except for myself; false to Avalon, false to Arthur, false to brother son and lover . . . and all I had sought was in ruin. In the ski was a pale and reddening flush where sometime soon, the sun would rise; and beyond the mists of Avalon, cold in the sky, I knew that somewhere Arthur and Gwydion would meet this day for the last time.   
  
As I went to summon the barge, it seemed to me that the little dark people were all around me and that I walked among them as the priestess I had been. I stood on the barge alone, and yet I knew there were others standing there with me, robed and crowned, Morgaine the Maiden, who had summoned Arthur to the running of the deer and the challenge of the King Stag, and Morgaine the Mother who had been torn asunder when Gwydion was born, and the Queen of North Wales, summoning the eclipse to send Accolon raging against Arthur, and the Dark Queen pf Fairy . . . or was it the Death-crone who stood at my side? And as the barge neared the shore, I heard the last of its followers cry, "Look-look, there, the barge with the four fair queens in the sunrise, the fairy barge of Avalon. . . ."   
  
He lay there, his hair matted with blood, my Gwydion, my lover, my son . . . and at his feet Gwydion lay dead, my son, the child I had never known. I bent and covered his face with my own veil. And I knew that this was the end of an age. In the days past, the young stag had thrown down the King Stag, and become King Stag in his turn; but the deer had been slaughtered, and the King Stag had killed the young stag and there would be none after him . . .   
  
And the stag must die in his turn.   
  
**I knelt at his side. "The sword Arthur. Excalibur. Take it in your hand. Take it and fling it from you into the waters of the Lake."   
  
The Sacred Regalia were gone out of this world forever, and the last of them, the sword Excalibur, must go with them. But he whispered protesting, holding it tight, "N- it must be kept for those who come after- to rally their cause, the sword of Arthur-" and looked up into the eyes of Lancelot. "Take it, Galahad- hear you not the trumpets from Camelot, calling to Arthur's legion? Take it- for the Companions-"   
  
"No," I told him quietly. "That day is past. None after you must pretend or claim to bear the sword of Arthur." I loosed his fingers gently form the hilt. "Take it Lancelot, "I said softly, "but fling it from you far into the waters of the Lake. Let the mists of Avalon swallow it forever."   
  
Lancelot went quietly to do my bidding. I know not if he saw me, or who he thought I was. And I cradled Arthur against my breast. His life was fading fast; I knew it, but I was beyond tears.   
  
"Morgaine," He whispered. His eyes were bewildered and full of pain. "Morgaine was it all for nothing then, what we did, and all that we tried to do? Why did we fail?"   
  
It was my own question, and I had no answer; but from somewhere, the answer came. "You did not fail, my brother, my love, my child. You held this land in peace for many years, so that the Saxons did not destroy it. You held back the darkness for a whole generation, until they were civilized men, with learning and music and faith in God, who will fight to save something of the beauty of the times that are past. If this land had fallen to the Saxons when Uther died, then would all hat was beautiful or good have perished forever from Britain. And so you did not fail my love. None of us knows how she will do her will- only that it will be done."   
  
And I knew not, even then, whether what I spoke was truth or whether spoke to comfort him, in love as with this little child Igraine had put into my arms when I was a child myself; Morgaine, she had told me, take care of your little brother, and so I had always done, so I would always do, now and beyond life . . . or was it the Goddess herself who had put Arthur into my arms?   
  
He pressed his failing fingers over the great cut in his breast. "If I had but- the scabbard you fashioned for me, Morgaine- I should not lie here now with my life slowly bleeding from me. . . . Morgaine, I dreamed- and in my dream I cried out for you, but I could not hold you-"   
  
I held him close. In the first light of the sun I saw Lancelot raise Excalibur in his hand, then fling it as hard as he could. It flew into the air end over end, the sun glinting as if on the wing of a white bird; then it fell; twisting, and I saw no more; my eyes were misted with tears and the growing light.   
  
Then I heard Lancelot: "I saw a hand rising from the lake- a hand that took the sword, and brandished it three times in the air and then drew it beneath the water . . . ."   
  
I had seen nothing, only the glimmer off light on a fish that broke the surface of the Lake; but I doubt not that he saw what he said he saw.**   
  
"Morgaine," Arthur whispered, "is it really you? I cannot see you, Morgaine, it is so dark here- is the sun setting? Morgaine, take me to Avalon, where you can heal me of this wound- take me home Morgaine-"   
  
His head was heavy on my breast, heavy as a child in my own childish arms, heavy as the King Stag who had come to me in triumph. Morgaine, my mother had called impatiently, take care of the baby . . . and all my life I had borne him with me. I held him close and wiped away his tears with my veil, and he reached up and caught at my hand with his own.   
  
"But it is really you," he murmured, "it is you, Morgaine . . . you have come back to me . . . and you are so young and fair . . . I will always see the Goddess with your face . . . Morgaine, you will not leave me again, will you?"   
  
"I will never leave you again, my brother, my baby, my love," I whispered to him, and I kissed his eyes. And he died, just as the mists rose and the sun shone full over the shores of Avalon.   
_  
  
And so came the end of the Great King Arthur Pendragon, called Pendragon for the image of the dragon on his red banner.   
  
But the story isn't over yet.   
  
Excalibur rests still in the Great Lake and the Lady of the Lake lies still awake in search of a new sword bearer. This Bearer will find a new Arthur, a new savior and save the world yet again from the evil and the darkness.

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A/N: Well? Did you read the whole thing or did you just read the highlighted? No matter… there's a summary and an explanation in the beginning of the newt chapter.   
  
Next Chapter: Hermione encounters some terrible news, Ginny lies unconscious. 


	2. Unconcious and Lost to the Darkness

  
  
**A/N:** Please disregarde the grammer and spelling mistakes.   
  
**Summary:** What's up with Harry? Why are Hermione and Ginny disappearing all the time? Who is this enticing new Gryffindor? And just where in all hells is Ron? Reincarnation is a strange and dangerous thing that toys with the present in hopes that the present will somehow turn out like the past, but will the past repeat itself in this occurrence, or will the reincarnation of the great King Arthur fail to save the world as we know it from a foe greater than any seen in this word yet?   
  
**Disclaimer:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.   
  


  
  
Bagages Egares   
  
Chapter 1

Unconcious and Lost to tthe Darkness   
  


  
  
**May 26, 1997**   
  
Harry Potter urged his broom faster and faster over the northern English countryside praying in vain that the unconscious girl in his arms would not give in to the waves of darkness creeping up on her. They had been flying for what seemed like days, but it could have only been minutes, or hours, who knew anymore?   
  
They'd been flying north over the Scottish borders when she had awakened last crying and sobbing. Then she had fallen out again and though he had tried keeping her awake, it was no use.   
  
"Almost there…" He murmured to himself.   
  
In fact, he could just make out the bright lights of the school far ahead of him in the darkness. They just might reach it by morning. For indeed the sun had just begun to creep over the hills in the east sending the lower sky into the rainbow of pinks and purples of dawn.   
  
He urged the broom to go faster and chanced a glance down at the girl in his arms.   
  
She had slumped against his shoulder and was taking short and laborious gasps of breath, in pain even though she was not all the way there. He had no doubt that she had at least three broken ribs and that one of them had punctured her lung causing her breath to shorten considerably. There were cuts and bruises that trailed down a pale arm that had somehow found its way out of the soft cloak she was wrapped in to protect her modesty.   
  
He'd nearly had a heart attack when he'd found her, lying on a dirty patch of hay in an equally dirty cell in an equally dirty dungeon, naked, shivering and clammy with fever. If he hadn't killed the basatard already, he'd be doing it right then.   
  
He had wrapped her in his thick velvet cloak when he'd finally finished with her captor and then jumped on his broom to rush her back to Hogwarts and safety, leaving the ruins of the old castle far behind them.   
  
That had been hours ago.   
  
And now Hogwarts was just in front of them gleaming in the dawn.   
  
"Wake up now love," He said jostling her shoulder, but she didn't respond. She only let out a low moan and a raspy gasp of pain before falling silent again. "This is bad…this is bad…" he murmured to himself.   
  
Their arrival at the castle came quicker than he expected and he was in luck, someone had left the doors wide open.   
  
So, ducking, he flew straight into the castle, down the hall, up the staircase to the third floor, and to the infirmary where he slid smoothly to a halt and shouted for Madame Pomfrey.   
  
The nurse and her assistant a seventh year Ravenclaw by the name of Annabelle Lee. "What is it my boy? You know you're not supposed to have brooms inside the castle, you could hurt someone, is that why you're here?"   
  
"NO!" He hurriedly dismounted and laid the girl in his arms carefully in the nearest bed.   
  
"OH!" The nurse, finally understanding, flitted over to the bed and started to work on the girl talking all the while. "What happened to her? Where was she? Who did this? Where were you when it happened?"   
  
All of these happened in such a rapid succession that Harry just stood there for a moment trying to figure out which one he should answer first.   
  
Madame Pomfrey suddenly stopped what she was doing and stared up at him. "Well? What are you waiting for? Go fetch Dumbledore, quickly!"   
  
Harry tore from the room at that statement and raced down the hall. One minute later he stood panting in front of Dumbledore's office and gasped out the password, "Whatchamacallits!"   
  
The gargoyle hopped to the side and Harry sprinted up the staircase not waiting to catch his breath.   
  
When he reached the door, he heard voices inside, but didn't stop to knock, he burst into the room and ducked as several curses were thrown at him. When he looked up it was into the surprised eyes of the Order of the Phoenix.   
  
Remus Lupin quickly lowered his wand and went towards Harry. "Harry! We thought you'd been captured."   
  
"No, I went after him." Harry gasped out. "He's dead now. That good for nothing SOB is dead." He cracked a smirk for the moment, then it was gone. "But Ginny…She…she's in the infirmary. He-he r-" But try as he might, he couldn't force it past his lips, it was too horrible to imagine. "Madame Pomfrey wants you Professor Dumbledore." He said instead.   
  
The old man rose quickly from his seat and swept from the room, Harry hot on his trail.   
  
**aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa6:46pmaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa**

It'd been about five hours since Harry had brought Ginny Weasley bleeding and bruised into the Hogwarts School infirmary, and it wasn't looking and better than it had then.   
  
Ginny lay prone in her bed, oblivious to the world around her. When Harry found her, she'd been unconscious, and Madame had had no idea of how long she'd been that way, maybe days, maybe hours… She'd been missing for over a month... It would be neigh on impossible to tell how long she'd been out.   
  
Harry sat in a chair next to her bed with his head in his hands brooding. If he hadn't insisted she get some air back in the beginning of May, she'd never have disappeared. It was all his fault this had happened…   
  
He sighed for the umpteenth time. Who knew when she'd wake up…   
  
Madame Pomfrey came out of her office where she'd been looking over Ginny's vitals for about an hour. She stopped near Annabelle who was tending to a second year with a broken arm. She whispered in the young girl's ear and handed he the papers, then walked away.   
  
Annabelle glanced over at Harry, sent a short prayer to whomever was listening then walked slowly towards him. She sat heavily in the chair next to Harry pushing her short raven hair back behind her ears. For a moment, they stared silently at Ginny's pale face. When she spoke, her clear blue eyes shone with sadness and pity. "Harry, do you happen to know where Ginny's brother is? Or perhaps Hermione?"   
  
Harry shrugged. He and Ron hadn't spoken since the day before when they'd left to kill Voldemort. "In the Gryffindor commons I suppose. But I don't doubt that he isn't fit to talk coherently at the moment." Ron had a nasty habit o getting wasted when bad things happened. Finding his sister unconscious and naked in the dungeons of the Dark Lord just happened to fall under that category. He sighed again. "As for Hermione, I think she headed home earlier than everyone else, her brother was sick." He rested his head in his hands memories of the past two days flashing through his head. "She was lucky…"   
  
The nurse didn't seem to hear the last portion of Harry's comment and nodded slowly. "Um… well, about Ginny… there is a…well, I guess you'd call it a complication-" Harry's head raised from his hands quickly and she rushed to clarify, "Well, not a _complication_ per say, more of a _situation_."   
  
He frowned. "Well, what is it?"   
  
Annabelle blushed and coughed." She's well…she's pregnant."   
  
Harry blinked at her a few times, then fell out of his seat in a dead faint.

**aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa8:37aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa**

**East Sussex just east of Ashdown Forest in Crowborough**

Hermione Granger held her four-year-old brother's hand tightly as the crossed the street in Crowborough. The sun had set over the Ashdown forest as they made their way back home to dinner.   
  
"Mia?" said her little brother Haven.   
  
She looked down at him and smiled. She'd had to take her finals early to come home because of his sickness. No one was exactly sure what he'd come down with, but he had gone into a sort of coma and had come out with a high fever and nausea. He'd come too about a week ago and she was taking him out for some air. "What is it?"   
  
"Is today a holiday?" She noticed he wasn't looking at her, but his blonde head was turned towards the direction of their neighborhood. His blue eyes reflected flashing lights, red, blue and a steady green.   
  
"No love, why?"   
  
"Because someone is setting of fireworks. Look." He pointed towards the lights and she looked and her heart stopped.   
  
They weren't fireworks, but the flashing lights of ambulances heading towards the steady green light of the dark mark that hung above their neighborhood. For a moment, she could only stare at the ugly green skull hovering above the neighborhood.   
  
"Mia?" Haven tugging on her skirt brought her back to earth and she looked down at him silently. "What's-a-matter?" He said peering up at her curiously.   
  
She didn't say anything, but scooped him into her arms and pelted down the street as fast as her legs would carry her.   
  
She arrived at the gate of the community and stopped at the gate house. "Ernie!" She gasped at the gate keeper. "Ernie! What house was it, what house??" Her eyes were wild and her braid had come undone with her sprint so that her hair hung about her shoulders in a wild array of curls.   
  
The middle aged gate keeper just looked at her sadly and shook his head. "I'm sorry Miss." He said. "I don't know 'ow 'e got in…"   
  
She pressed her hand to her mouth to cover a silent scream and dashed through the gate at top speed.   
  
She passed three large mansions belonging to a doctor, a tennis player, and a lawyer, then came to a large white house with blue shutters, the lawn was tapped off with the yellow tape that police officers use to isolate a crime scene. There were four ambulances and five police cars, sirens wailing and lights flashing. Three officers came up to her to hold her back, and she just looked at them hopelessly.   
  
Then a large white sheepdog streaked out of the house and ran to her. Haven scrambled down from her arms and threw his arms around the dog's neck giggling. "'Ello Gwydion!"   
  
The dog whimpered and pulled gently at his shirt with his teeth. "Mia! He wants us to follow him!" Haven said with a smile. The dog took off and Haven went after him before the ppolice officers could snatch him up.   
  
Hermione's eyes widened and she sprinted after him. "Haven! Don't go in there!" But the dog slipped inside the open front door and Haven went in after him.   
  
Hermione stood still in the center of the lawn just waiting for something to happen. Time seemed to stand still.   
  
Then a child's scream rent the air. "Momma!"   
  
Hermione raced into the house and into the living room to see what she knew she'd see.   
  
Her parents lay dead and bleeding in the center of the white carpet, no longer pristine, but bloody and dirty. The coffee table had been smashed to pieces ad the glass from the tabletop lay everywhere. In the center of the ruined table lay the doctor that had been visiting to check up on Haven. The nurse that had come with him lay flung across the couch a dagger protruding form her chest.   
  
Hermione's hand went shaking to her mouth and her eyes scanned the room for Haven. He was sobbing over their mother.   
  
"Wake up momma! Wake up!" His shaggy blonde head looked up and his eyes focused on her. "Mia, she won't wake up, why won't she wake up?" he ran to her and threw himself in her arms. "Why?!"   
  
Hermione only hugged him to her stomach and sobbed along with him. Soon her tears stopped and she comforted Haven.   
  
"Excuse me miss?" Said a voice near her side. It was an investigator and a police officer stood by his side. "We'd like to ask you a few questions." He made a gesture towards the dinning room. The sliding doors stood open and she could see paperwork spread over the table top where she'd eaten Christmas dinner for all her seventeen years of life, where she'd sat with her mother making arts and crafts when she was younger… why were they doing this?   
  
The man spoke again. "Miss, there are a few questions we have for you."   
  
Hermione's gaze slid to him and she wondered if she should say that she knew who did it. She knew who killed her parents. The words were on the tip of her toung when she felt a hand on her shoulder. Turning she saw two of her professors standing there clad in muggle clothes.   
  
Severus Snape stood near the living room door clothed completely in black, slacks, shirt and coat. Minerva McGonagall stood near the door in a conservative business suit. And just behind Hermione stood Albus Dumbledore in a gray suit that fit him well. She could see the shimmering of a glamour around him that hid the length of his hair and beard. "I'm sorry," he said to the investigator, "Miss Granger isn't feeling too well, she'll have to answer your questions later." He pushed her gently towards Minerva who opened her arms and hugged Hermione and her brother tightly. She never saw him stun and obliviate the people in the house save the professors and himself, and she never saw how he cleaned up the site in a matter of minutes. He had reason to be the only wizard Voldemort ever feared.   
  
"They're gone…" Hermione whispered bewildered. "My parents…they…the death eaters…" She looked up at Minerva. "Why?"   
  
The older woman sighed and shook her head. "They didn't know about our attack today so they must have been out on this mission when Harry killed Voldemort. I'm so sorry Hermione."   
  
Dazed, Hermione looked towards the living room and saw Snape standing just inside the living room door with his head in his hands. He stood at her mother's head as he raised his wand and with a flick and a wave cleaned up the room and the bodies. Aurors were swarming the scene and were looking grim, but oddly content. Hermione turned her head away from the scene.   
  
"Harry killed Voldemort?" She asked softly. She blinked rapidly trying to clear her suddenly foggy vision. "When?"   
  
But Minerva did not answer right away. "Severus, she's going to faint!" She tried to snatch Haven form Hermione's arms, but he wouldn't let go of her.   
  
Hermione blinked again. "When did Harry kill him?" She asked again.   
  
Minerva stood in front o her and Severus stood behind ready to catch her if she fell. "Earlier today." She said carefully.   
  
Hermione blinked once, twice, three times, then her eyes rolled back and she slumped against professor Snape.   
  
"Well, she took that like a true woman." He said.   
  
Minerva only glared at him.   
  
**#%%&(%)%#$%#$!$%!#%#%%&(&()&$%#!#!#$#%&%((&)&$%**

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A/N: Well…there's the second chapter… review if you think it's worth saying something about. 


	3. Helen's Secret

  
  
**A/N:** Who ever thought up the concept of summer vacation, I love you. You're most likely dead, but I love you.   
  
**Summary:** What's up with Harry? Why are Hermione and Ginny disappearing all the time? Who is this enticing new Gryffindor? And just where in all hells is Ron? Reincarnation is a strange and dangerous thing that toys with the present in hopes that the present will somehow turn out like the past, but will the past repeat itself in this occurrence, or will the reincarnation of the great King Arthur fail to save the world as we know it from a foe greater than any seen in this word yet?   
  
**Disclaimer:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.   
  


  
  
And We Thought it Was the End   
  
Chapter 2   
  
Helen's Secret   
  


  
  
**June 1, 1997**   
  
Hermione held onto Haven's hand tightly and Haven kept a tight hand on Gwydion's leash as they stood in a corner of their lawyer's office as the will was being read.   
  
Hermione wasn't really listening. She stared out the large picture window down at the bustling streets of London in a detached sort of way. Haven, who was usually loud and happy was curiously quiet and leaned on Gwydion for strength. After what Hermione liked to call "It", he had lost more and more of his strength and had been bedridden, but Hermione's aunt Alyse- her father's sister, who had been taking care of them for the past week, said that he had to be at the reading of the wills. He had refused to let Hermione carry him saying he could stand by himself, but less than ten minutes into the meeting, he was fairly laying across Gwydion's back. The dog for his part looked slightly worried at his master's condition.   
  
"To my sister, I leave… To my friend Tessa… To my brother…" The lawyer's voice faded in and out of Hermione's consciousness, but she didn't really care, she was watching a mother across the street fussing over her two children. One was a girl who looked to be about twelve or thirteen and an infant in a pram that lay tossing a toy into the air. _I wonder if mum used to look like that…_ Hermione wondered.   
  
"In regards to the safety of my children..." Hermione tuned in here, it would be important to her future, "until Hermione becomes of age in her own right, eighteen, I would wish my children to be taken in by the one woman I trusted with my life and the life of my beloved. At the time of my death, the children should be sent to one Narcissa Black…"   
  
The room went silent. Hermione's aunts and uncles looked at each other bewildered. Hermione, for her part had frozen…Narcissa Black…where did she know that name from…   
  
Alyse Coleman shot up with a surprised expression, "But-"   
  
The lawyer, a Mr. Briton, lifted his hand to silence her. "I am sorry Mrs. Coleman, that is what the will says, no arguments please." Then he cast a glance about the room. "Is Miss Narcissa Black here?"   
  
A two figures moved in the shadows of the room. One stepped forward. She was a strikingly beautiful woman with long white blonde hair and stunning blue eyes. Her face looked like a fairy's, but she had an elf's grace and beauty. She smiled softly at the lawyer. "It's Narcissa Malfoy now." She turned her smile to Hermione who was staring at her with eyes as wide as saucers. _That's_ where she knew that name from…Sirius Black's cousin… Narcissa Black married Lucius Malfoy who became a death eater…death eaters killed her parents…she was going to live with a death eater…her life was over…   
  
Haven raised his face to Hermione. "Mia, do you know her?"   
  
Hermione's gaze snapped to her brother and for a moment she just looked at him, still trying to sort out her thoughts. Her oldest cousin, her mother's only sibling's son, Edward Richter stood and shook her gently. "Mia?" His parents had died to and Hermione's mother had practically raised him by herself.   
  
She blinked rapidly. "I-I'm fine…" She looked down at Haven who was still looking up at her expectantly. "Not very well brother."   
  
He nodded and looked at Narcissa. "I think I shall like living with you, you're pretty, like Mia's dolls."   
  
Narcissa smiled softly at him. "Thank you, what's your name?"   
  
"Haven."   
  
"That's a very nice name."   
  
"Thank you. Mia says it fits me, but I don't know what that means because I don't think you can wear a name like you can wear clothes…" He hoisted himself up higher on the dog and smiled wearily.   
  
Narcissa smiled again and the lawyer cleared his throat. "Mrs. Malfoy, you said?"   
  
Narcissa turned to the lawyer. "Yes, my maiden name is Black."   
  
The lawyer nodded and began to shift papers around on the large table. "I presume your husband knows of this?"   
  
A harsh frown passed across Narcissa's face, but it was gone in an instant. "My husband is dead… he died last week." She said softly.   
  
"Oh, I am sorry."   
  
"Oh, it's alright." She said.   
  
"Well, if the rest of the family has no objections…" Alyse looked ready t pull Narcissa's hair out, but Eddy shut her up with a stern glance, "Alright then, if you'll just sign these papers…here…here…here…and here…"   
  
Hermione watched helplessly as her parents' lawyer signed her life away to a woman she barely knew accept that she was the widow of a death eater and the mother of a git. _Well, if worst come to worst, I'll be eighteen in one year…_ She thought.   
  
Narcissa straightened from the table. "Is that all then?"   
  
The lawyer looked down at the papers in front of him and nodded. "Yes, yes I believe that is all…wait…there is a letter here from Helen to Hermione… here you go child." He handed her the thick envelope and Hermione held it delicately in her hands. "Thank you." She whispered. Then she looked around at her family congregated there. "Good bye all. I'll write you." Eddy surprised her by clasping her into a tight hug.   
  
They had spent their lives as older brother to younger sister and he was reluctant to let her go. He was also the only other wizard in the family. "If anything happens, I'm just an owl away." He whispered fiercely in her ear. Then he let her go and wrapped Haven's small body in another tight hug.   
  
"Bye Eddie." Whispered the little boy.   
  
Narcissa dabbed at the corner of her eye, she had known Edward Granger well, had helped Helen change his nappies as a matter of fact. "Edward, you're welcome to come to the manor at anytime." She said softly.   
  
He stood and regarded her. Since Lucius was dead...everything was okay..."Alright then." He gave her a fleeting smile, then walked from the room.   
  
Narcissa watched him walk from the door, then turned to Hermione and her brother. "Children?"   
  
Hermione nodded and clasped Haven's hand tightly in her own. Then they walked from the room.   
  
In the foyer of the building near the glass door, Narcissa stopped and turned to them. "How do you feel about something to eat?"   
  
"I'm starving!" Haven said. "But I'm tired too."   
  
Hermione, still holding his hand, spoke up, "He didn't get much sleep. He's been having nightmares." She tried to pick him up again, but he swatted at her hand.   
  
"I can stand by myself Mia!"   
  
She shrugged and left him alone.   
  
Narcissa clucked her toung against the roof of her mouth. She suddenly looked over Hermione's head and began speaking to someone behind her. "Draco, love, be a dear and have Weston bring a wheelchair into the building for Haven would you?"   
  
Hermione whipped around. She hadn't even noticed him walking silently behind them, nor had she seen him in the room... She watched him nod at his mother, then she stiffened as his gazed focused on her.   
  
He gave her a slight nod in recognition. "Hermione."   
  
She only stared at him. He had never called her by her first name. She came back when Haven nudged her whispering loudly. "Mummy always says it's rude to stare at people."   
  
His use of the present tense shocked her out of her stupor and she nodded quickly at Draco. "Mal-Draco."   
  
He gave her another nod, then walked outside the building only to return a minute later with a brand spanking new wheelchair. He rolled it up behind Haven, then bent over the chair and hoisted the little boy into it.   
  
Hermione smiled as she heard her brother's contended sigh. "Much better."   
  
Narcissa cleared her throat and smiled. "So, anyone hungry?"   
  
It wasn't until later that day as they were leaving the swanky restaurant In Diagon Alley, that Hermione spoke the question that had been on her mind since they'd left the lawyer's office.   
  
As they settled back into the sleek limo (she still couldn't believe she was riding in one) she looked to Narcissa and said," Why... this is going to sound terribly forward of me, but, why you?"   
  
Narcissa smiled softly, everything about the woman was soft! "No, it is not forward at all, it is completely justified considering the situation." She fiddled with the ring on her right index finger and sighed. "Hermione, do you know much about your mother's family?"   
  
Hermione shook her head. "Well, there was Grace and Jordan, but they died before I was born and my mother took care of Eddie, and I never met my grand parents, so...no...I don't know very much."   
  
"Well, do you know where you got your magic from?"   
  
"That I do know. Once every year a certain number of muggle children are born with magic that came to them randomly, but it has no definite origins-"   
  
"My mother asked if you knew where your magic was from, not a history lesson." Draco snapped from the other end of the car.   
  
Narcissa turned to him. "Draconis, that was uncalled for. Apologize immediately."   
  
Draco glared at her for a moment, then Narcissa raised one eyebrow and Draco quickly apologized.   
  
Narcissa smiled content and went back to the subject. "Though that was a perfect answer, it is not the correct one."   
  
Hermione stared at her. "It's not?"   
  
"No." Narcissa shook her head. "Your mother was the daughter of a prominent wizarding family, the Richters. Her father was a candidate for the Minister of Magic after Thorne. His name was Decius Richter. He married the only child of another prominent wizarding family, Morgan Bankfort, her father was a president of Gringotts at one point, that was before the goblins took over." She looked over at Hermione.   
  
The young girl was staring in shock at Narcissa, completely silent. So she continued.   
  
"Your father, or rather the father you knew, Richard Granger, had not a drop of wizarding blood in him. It was your real father that gave you your intelligence and your cunning."   
  
Now Hermione spoke, "My _real father_?" This somehow didn't seem as strange as her mother being a witch. Hermione and Richard had never really gotten along, they only tolerated each other.   
  
Narcissa nodded and continued. "You shall have to find out his name on your own. I swore to Helen that I would never tell you."   
  
"Why?"   
  
"Because My family put them through so much, there was only so much I could do." She shrugged.   
  
"How did you know my mother?"   
  
"We were in th same year at Hogwarts, we were both Gryffindors."   
  
Now that shocked Hermione. Narcissa Malfoy..a _Gryffindor???_   
  
_My day just keeps getting stranger..._ Hermione shook her head and rested it back on the head rest of the soft leather seat.   
  
"Well, I'd assume you've heard enough for now?" Narcissa said.   
  
"Hole in one."   
  
There was silence.   
  
"It's a muggle term."   
  
More silence.   
  
"Never mind."   
  
Narcissa nodded and spoke again. "I expect that you have possessions that you'd like t get?"   
  
Hermione nodded.   
  
Narcissa leaned forward and rapped on the portion of tinted window that led to the driver's seat. "Weston, please go to..." She turned back to Hermione. "Where is it that you live?"   
  
"Albright Hills." She said softly. "It's near Crowborough in East Sussex, just east and south of Ashdown forest."   
  
Narcissa turned back to the driver and Draco spoke up. "That's like the richest neighborhood in Sussex."   
  
"I know." She sighed not really wanting to explain this to him, but he looked like he really wanted to know. "My mum and dad were both dentists with large salaries and apparently my mum's family had some amount of money and my dad's father was like a millionaire or something." Her head dropped back on the seat and she prepared for the long ride back home. 

**-**

**aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa3:45pmaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa**

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"Mia wake up." A small hand shook her shoulder gently. "Mia, we're here."   
  
Her eyes peered open and she stared up into Haven's wide frosty blue eyes. "Alright, I'm up."   
  
He scrambled out the door and ran to Narcissa who was standing on the lawn of the large white house.   
  
Hermione sighed and made to get out of the car. What surprised her was that the hand that reached down to help her up did not belong to Weston, the butler, but to Draco Malfoy himself. "Thank you." She whispered.   
  
He nodded and walked to his mother.   
  
They all looked at Hermione expectantly and she walked up to the house and opened the door.   
  
It really was a nice house. Large, like all the others on the street, it was whitewashed with dark blue shutters and a red front door.   
  
The front door led to a warm and comfortable foyer that held a small table with a vase of fresh roses in it.   
  
Beyond the table was the double staircase that led to the second floor. Beneath the stairs was a door that led to the dinning room and the kitchen. T the left of the foyer was the archway that led to the parlor. On the other side of the foyer was the archway that led to the den and the family room. "Have a look around." She said to Narcissa and Draco. "We'll be back in a minute." She turned to her brother. "To the hursery with you, I daresay nana is up there waiting for you."   
  
Haven nodded and went up the stairs. She followed him at a much slower pace Gwydion by her side.   
  
She entered her room and softly closed the door to a crack. There was just too much to think about.   
  
She walked to her cd player and put on some soothing classical music. Then she started magicing things into a large box in the corner. She'd been given special permission to use her wand by Albus.   
  
She let the soft sounds of violins and cellos wash over her as she continued to pack. She emptied the many book shelves of books and trinkets, folded all of her clothes and stuffed them into suit cases. She went to her bed and had started to pull the sheets and things off, but them decided to leave them there. She knew that the house would stay with her and her brother and didn't really want to bare her room. But she did pull the three stuffed animals off the bed and put them in the box along with everything else. When she turned to the shelf that ran along the top of the room she stopped.   
  
There were approximately one hundred and seventy-two porcelain dolls that sat there, all different, all from her mother. She pulled down two that had been her mother's and one very special one that was her favorite.   
  
Clara had a blue silk brocade dress that was embroidered with gold flowers designed like the dresses of the eighteenth century. She had little black leather shoes and her glossy black curls were pilled on top of her little head. She stared out of a lifeless face with a blank blue gaze and her cherry red lips were frozen in a happy smile. A little tag hung from her small wrist and Hermione read the little note fo what might have been the thousandth time.   
  
"_To my darling baby girl, on her first birthday. May you forever be happy and content._" She whispered the words and a tear slid down her cheek.   
  
A knock on the door startled her and she hastily wiped the tear away. She turned quickly to th door and stared at Draco.   
  
"Hermione? Where's the- Hey, are you alright?" He came farther into the room and Hermione clutched the doll to her chest looking around the room in desperation.   
  
It had all hit her at that moment. Her parents were dead, they were never coming back. Her mother was a witch and had lied to her since she was born. Her father wasn't really her father, but just some man her mother had had to marry. She was going to live with the Malfoys, and no matter that Lucius was dead, it still only added more to her plate and she couldn't take it anymore.   
  
She sat on the be heavily and began to cry.   
  
She felt the bed slope as Draco sat next to her and slid an arm around her shoulder. He didn't say anything, he just sat there comforting her, and she was grateful for that.

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A/N: There's chapter two. Please review.   
  
Also if anyone can tell me exactly what day Hermione's birthday is I would be vey thankful. I know that it's in the beginning of POA somewhere, but I just don't feel like looking right now...   
  
I'd ask Ara, but she has left the building and I have no idea where she is as she never tell me anything...   
  
Next Chapter: Ginny wakes up to hear some startling news and will Hermione ever open that leter from her mother?

A/N2: It has come to my attention that some of us reading this story cough Ara! cough are confused, so let me straighten it out.

**Last Chapter**: Harry brings Ginny back to Hogwarts from Voldemort's lair whereever that was beaten and bloody. **_clarification coming_** SHE WAS _RAPED_ BY VOLDEMORT. she **did not** go willingly. and yes, Hermione's rents are gone, dead, on another plane, and yes there a lot of fainting episodes in this story.


	4. The Burdens of the Damned

  
  
**A/N:** Beware, if you're uncomfortable with rape scenes, please scroll down to the second portion of this chapter. Thank you very much.   
  
**Summary:** What's up with Harry? Why are Hermione and Ginny disappearing all the time? Who is this enticing new Gryffindor? And just where in all hells is Ron? Reincarnation is a strange and dangerous thing that toys with the present in hopes that the present will somehow turn out like the past, but will the past repeat itself in this occurrence, or will the reincarnation of the great King Arthur fail to save the world as we know it from a foe greater than any seen in this word yet?   
  
**Disclaimer:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.   
  
**A/N2:** If you have the soundtrack to the PoA movie, the beginning of this chapter would be the perfect time to listen to track 4 as you read. It fits perfectly!!!   
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And We Thought it Was the End   
  
Chapter 3   
  
The Burdens of the Damned   
  


  
  
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**June 7, 1997**   
  
Ginny Weasley was in a living hell. She wasn't completely awake, but she wasn't really asleep either. She was stuck on a plane of existence that made her relive every horrible thing in her life.   
  
_She watched herself find Tom's diary in her belongings that first day of school.   
  
She watched herself murder the chickens in Hagrid's yard. She watched their necks break with a blank face, she didn't flinch as the blood splattered her robes.   
  
She watched the snake rear up behind a solidifying Tom Marvolo Riddle.   
  
She watched as she fell down the stairs in the Department of Mysteries breaking her ankle.   
  
She watched as her brother was attacked by the disgusting brain.   
  
Then she felt the cool spring air as she relieved the most horrifying moment of them all.   
  
Harry had told her to get some air to blow off steam after an argument with her boyfriend Colin Creevy. So she'd stormed out of the common room and had taken refuge in the gardens.   
  
She sighed and ran a light finger over a white rose. If he'd only listen to me.. She thought fleetingly.   
  
Suddenly it got very cold and she shivered with the change of air. She wrapped her arms tightly around her shoulders and shivered violently. Shivers ran up and down her spine as the leave of plants nearby rustled and flew along the ground.   
  
The sound of twigs snapping drew her gaze to the other end of the garden. A figure stood there clothed completely in black from head to foot.   
  
She hid behind a thick tree and peered at him from around the trunk. "Who is that?" She muttered softly.   
  
"**Virginia**."   
  
The voice was a his that sent a chilling tingle down her spine.   
  
She felt herself being pulled from behind the tree and towards him and was powerless to stop it.   
  
She watched as one extremely pale arm reached out of the confines of the robe to touch a pristine rose. It quickly turned black and withered under his touch.   
  
She shivered violently. "What do you want with me?" She asked her voice trembling.   
  
"**Give her to me.**" He said. "**Tell me where she is.**"   
  
She shivered again. "Never."   
  
"**You have no choice.**"   
  
There was a sharp crack and they were gone.   
  
She looked round her new surroundings and saw that she was sprawled on the floor of a richly decorated study, but she didn't give it much thought. Her gaze shot towards a fireplace and the small pot on the mantle. She tried to stand up and run to it, but found that her legs would not obey her.   
  
Someone chuckled evilly and she turned her gaze to the figure sitting on the edge of the desk. He had removed his robe and she looked at him in horror. "You!"   
  
The condescending evil tone, the way he hissed her name, she should have known it was him. But he didn't match Harry's stories. His hair was just as dark and thick, and his skin just as pale and clear as his sixteen year old self, he only looked a bit older, maybe twenty at most.   
  
"**Yes, me. Did you really think you'd get away with tricking me Virginia? Did you really think that I wouldn't realize what had happened that night?**"   
  
She shook her head not in negation to his question, but in the negation to the reality of the situation.   
  
"**No one lies to me Virginia, I know all. I see all.**"   
  
She shook her head again, but again he ignored her. He waked to the window and his deep blue eyes glittered in the moonlight.   
  
"**Whether you wish to or not, you will give me my heir, Virginia.**" He walked to her slowly and jerking her into a standing position, traced a cold finger down her cheek. "**A Dark Queen for a Dark King.**"   
  
"I am not evil." She spat.   
  
"**How we do like to lie to ourselves... Such a pity though...Now I'll just have to do this the hard way...**"   
  
She jumped as his hands locked around her waist and pulled her tight against his body. Spinning around and pinning her to the desk he said smoothly. "**I'll give you one more chance to agree before I take you by force Virginia. Tell me where she is.**"   
  
This time she spat on his cheek and growled, "No."   
  
She shrieked as his hand came in contact with her cheek and her head turned sharply to the side. She was surprised that he hadn't broken her neck with the force.   
  
She had known what was coming before her robe was torn away from her body, but never was she ready for the pain that spread form her center to the rest of her body. Never had she been ready for the pain that ripped through her veins at the mere touch of his hands to her bare skin.   
  
He had her up against the desk and in the past five minutes, that heavy desk had been push back three feet with the force of his thrusts.   
  
Suddenly a knock sounded at the door.   
  
He stopped lazily and Ginny sobbed aloud hoping someone would come in and make him stop hurting her.   
  
"**Enter!**" He barked, but he didn't pull himself away form her body.   
  
Another robed figure entered the room, but he made no move to stop him from hurting her as he began once again. She whimpered out a sob as the new man started talking seemingly unaware of her presence in the room.   
  
"My Lord, a notice has been put out for her disappearance. They have a search party going now, but we are hidden here, no one will ever find her until it is too late." He leered around his master at Virginis and she again felt the creaping tingle u her spine._

_She knew then that she wouldn't get out of that god-forsaken castle alive.  
  
"**That is good.**" He said slamming into her harder. "**How does it feel to know that you're here and that no matter how hard they try, they will never find you...?**"   
  
Another sob escaped her throat and she tried to beat against his chest with her fists, but again she found that couldn't move a muscle to her will. Her feet dangled at least a foot above the ground and she was still impaled on him so she couldn't move anyway.   
  
"**Think hard about your actions over the next few weeks Virginia. I will not kill you yet, for you still have a secret to tell me. But remember, that when I finally kill you, it will be more painful than anything you have ever felt.**"   
  
He slammed her into the desk one final time with such force that she heard bones break over her pained scream._   
  
Ginny Weasley woke screaming and clutching her head so tightly that her knuckles had turned white and blood trickled from nail cuts on her face. The pain in her waist had spread through the rest of her body and she couldn't take it. She moved her hands away from her face and loked at her nails, the sight of the blood made her scream louder. Her hands went to her knees clutching and turning white again.   
  
"Her eyes were still shut tight, so when she felt strong hands push her back into a bed she fought against them.   
  
"Leave me alone! I don't want you here! I won't tell you! Just kill me all ready!" She screamed fighting against the hands. She reached up and clawed at the face above hers trying to tear his eyes out. He'd pay for what he did to her. "Let me alone!"   
  
"Virginia! Virginia! Stop this right now!"   
  
She tried opening her eyes to see, but when she did, she only met a continued darkness. Was she blind? Well at least she didn't have to see his ugly face again.   
  
It was a man's voice she knew that much.   
  
"Who are you?" She asked shakily. "Where is Tom?"   
  
"Tom is gone, he won't be coming back to hurt you anymore."   
  
Tears fell from her sightless eyes and she buried her head in the man's shoulder. Surely he must be a good man if he had protected her from Tom, surely he might help her now.   
  
She raised her head from his shoulder quickly. "Dumbledore, I have to find Dumbledore!" She gasped urgently. "He needs to know-"   
  
"You can't see Dumbledore Virginia."   
  
She froze, maybe this man wasn't so trustworthy after all.   
  
"DUMBLEDORE! I need to see Dumbledore!" She screamed loudly. "LET ME GO!" For the man's hands were once again at her shoulders pushing her back into the bed.   
  
"Virginia! Calm down!"   
  
"Dumbledore!"   
  
"Here, give her this!" She heard a new voice over her screams, a woman's voice. "It'll put her to sleep."   
  
"No!" Ginny tried to knock the phial from his hands as he pressed it to her lips, but cool hands held her wrists pinned to the bed and she was forced to swallow the icy liquid. She felt her movements slow and her eyes slide shut as her mind went blissfully blank.   
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Remus Lupin and a woman with long raven hair and pale, pale skin stood tensed next to Ginny Weasley's hospital bed watching as she fell into a deep sleep.   
  
"Poor girl." The woman muttered. "What he must have out her through this time around . . ."   
  
Remus only shook his head sadly and sat heavily in the chair next to the bed. "What'll we do now?"   
  
The woman seemed not to hear him as she said, "She still has the Gift. You can practically touch her aura." Remus nodded as the woman hovered both hands just above Ginny's stomach. "The child has it too."   
  
He shrugged. "So does Britt."   
  
The woman sighed. "Yes, she does, but that is not her destiny." Her hands continued to probe Ginny's pristine aura. "Isn't it strange? Her aura is almost completely white . . ."   
  
Remus allowed a small smile to slip past his lips despite the moment. "She's a very strong girl." Then he sighed dropping his face into his hands. "What are we going to do with the three of them? You know she's not going to want to get rid of the child, just like with Brit."   
  
The woman nodded. "I know, but we will help her, just like we've done for the past five years."   
  
"Yes, yes we will." Not for the first time in his life, Remus Lupin looked up at his wife in awe of her large heart.   
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Ginny woke again sometime later to a dark hospital room. She could see now, that she was sure of. But as she tried stretching her legs under the blanket, she found that she could not and began to cry.   
  
_He must have broken something when he hurt me all those times . . . _She thought mournfully. _Now I won't even be able to walk . . . _  
  
Tears slid down the sides of her face and leaked into her ears, but she made no move to brush them away.   
  
The curtain shielding her bed from the rest of the infirmary opened and in walked Remus Lupin and his wife, Aya.   
  
Aya took one look at the crying girl and pulled her into a sitting position. "It's all right love, you cry it out now, you'll feel better when you're done."   
  
Ginny allowed herself to be held and sobbed harder as every single painful moment of the past month came crashing down on her. After a while she stopped crying and she started talking, low and fast so that Remus and Aya both had to lean in and listen hard to catch everything.   
  
"He wanted to know where Brit was, and I wouldn't tell him, so he raped me again, and again, and again, and so many times after that that I lost count. I think he broke my pelvic bone on the desk in his study because I can't move my legs." She sighed again and Aya leaned her back onto her pillows.   
  
The raven haired woman poured her a glass of water and the icy liquid felt soothing as it sloshed down her throat.   
  
"Thank you." She handed her friend back the glass and folded her hands in her lap. For a long time no one said anything, they just sat there in silence as silent tears slid down Ginny's cheeks. Suddenly Ginny lifted her face to Aya's and said, "I'm pregnant aren't I?   
  
Aya, who knew she couldn't lie to her merely nodded.   
  
"I knew it. He didn't use any contraceptive means and I didn't have my wand with me and . . . oh hell . . . Britt is not going to like this."   
  
"She's old enough to understand isn't she?" Remus asked looking at his wife.   
  
"No, no she's not. She's only five and extremely proud. She's going to see it as someone taking her place." Ginny mumbled. "How is she by the way?"   
  
Aya smiled for the first time in two months. "She's great. She knocked out her two front teeth running into the landing banister though."   
  
Ginny nodded. "She'll be as clumsy as I am." She said mournfully. "Thank you again for taking care of her. I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't."   
  
"We love having her at the house, makes everything a lot more cheery." Aya said. "And she loves The Lord of the Rings when I read it to her."   
  
Ginny only nodded, not feeling up to talking anymore.   
  
What seemed like hours later, two more people entered the secluded area.   
  
"It's nice to have you back with us Miss. Weasley." Said Madame Pomfrey. "I'll just need to examine you and then I'll be on my way."   
  
The examination was done in ten minutes and Poppy sat on the edge of Ginny's bed and looked her in the eye. "I expect you already know of your pregnancy?"   
  
Ginny only nodded not trusting her voice to say anything.   
  
"Will you be wanting to keep the child or would you like me to-"   
  
"We've been over this before. I'll be keeping her." Ginny said with her head raised. "No matter the circumstances of the conception, it's not the child's fault, it would be unjust to deprive her of a life." She ran a hand over her face wearily. "Besides by now she probably had a heart beating and little fingers and things...no, I couldn't kill her."   
  
"Her . . . Miss Weasley?"   
  
"Yes, she's a girl."   
  
"How would you know this?"   
  
"I just do . . ." Ginny said allowing her eyes to slide closed.   
  
"All right then, that finishes that portion of the exam. One more thing though Miss Weasley."   
  
Ginny dragged her eyes open and stared at the nurse. "Yes?"   
  
"In your attack, your hip and pelvic bones were fractured in five places. Your recuperation will be long and painful, but in the end, you will be back to normal. Until then, do not get up out of this bed unless any of the four adults here now are present to assist you."   
  
"Yes Madame Pomfrey." Ginny's eyes closed again, and she groaned when Dumbledore spoke up.   
  
"Virginia, though I know you are tired, there are still some things that you need to hear."   
  
"I'm listening." She said without opening her eyes.   
  
"Very well then." She felt him softly pat her knee and reached down to grasp his hand. "First off, please accept my most sincere apologies that you were not safe in Hogwarts' very own gardens."   
  
"It's all right Albus. I knew he'd come for me sooner or later... It was just a matter of waiting for the opportune moment. It came, it happened, and there's nothing we can do to change that."   
  
"That is no excuse. The wards around the school have been multiplied tenfold since your capture and will multiply anther tenfold come the start of the school year I daresay."   
  
She only nodded and let his hand slide from her grasp.   
  
"Secondly, I'd assume you'd stay the summer here so I have made preparations for you to finish your fifth year, and complete your sixth here at Hogwarts. Should you be a success, you will be raised one grade level and join the seventh years in the fall."   
  
Her eyes snapped open and she stared hard at him. "Do you mean it?"   
  
He nodded and she took pains not to try and throw her arms around his neck for fear of throwing something out of place I her hips. So she settled for verbal thanks. "Thank you Albus, you have no idea . . ."   
  
"Hush child. It's the least I could do." He smiled and his eyes twinkled. "Also, there is a surprise for you when you wake up again, but you must get some sleep."   
  
"Well, isn't that a nice way to get someone to relax and go to sleep? 'I have a surprise for you, but I want you to go to sleep first', you need to work on that Albus." Ginny said with a small timid smile.   
  
He chuckled, stood and gave her a gentle hug, then swept from the room.   
  
Soon Remus stood too, kissing Aya's cheek, then hugging Ginny. But Aya herself pulled out a book and began to read.   
  
Feeling Ginny's gaze, she looked up with a questioning glance. "I thought you were supposed to be sleeping?" The older woman asked with a kind smile.   
  
Ginny only sighed. "I know you want to talk to me about something, I can feel it. What what's going on?"   
  
"It can wait. There is time yet young one, sleep."   
  
Ginny sighed again and didn't resist as Aya helped her lay back down. Soon she was lost in the oblivion that was her dreams.   
  
Her last coherent thought was: _I wonder what Albus has for me?_   
  
Then she didn't wake up for a long time . . .   
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A/N: Well? What do you think? Would someone please get up the energy and tell me what they think of my story? I only have two reviews and they're from the same person! And that doesn't even count because I see this person every day! So please, ease my aching heart and review!   
  
For further reference will someone PLEASE tell me what in the hell "WIKTT" is because I am dying to know! I see it everywhere and I can't make sense of it...   
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	5. Malfoy Manor

  
  
**A/N:** For now I'm just going to jump back and forth between Hermione and Ginny to reveal their summers and their struggles as they grow. Please, enjoy.   
  
**Summary:** What's up with Harry? Why are Hermione and Ginny disappearing all the time? Who is this enticing new Gryffindor? And just where in all hells is Ron? Reincarnation is a strange and dangerous thing that toys with the present in hopes that the present will somehow turn out like the past, but will the past repeat itself in this occurrence, or will the reincarnation of the great King Arthur fail to save the world as we know it from a foe greater than any seen in this word yet?   
  
**Disclaimer:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.   
  


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And We Thought it Was the End   
  
Chapter 4   
  
Malfoy Manor   
  


  
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Scotland: Some where between Rockcliffe and Kirkbean on the shores of Solway Firth   
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**June 8, 1997**   
  
Hermione Granger stood on a cliff over looking the slightly choppy waters of the Solway Firth. Behind her loomed the gothic Malfoy Manor and her sorrows and troubles.   
  
Her thick fur cloak whipped in the harsh sea wind as she stared silently across the water at the English borders. Her hair flew back from her face with the wind and her eyes stung from the air . . . or was it just tears?   
  
Her clothing was completely black for the funeral they were about to attend. The maid appointed to her by Narcissa had twisted the sides of her hair together and pinned them behind her head to give her curly hair a slightly Renaissance look. She was wearing a conventional black dress in the new wizarding style. She hadn't bothered to tell Narcissa that her family would think she'd gone insane. The dress was positively medieval. It was thick black velvet, off-the-shoulder, long sleeved, the waistline took a dive at her hips and met in a point just below her pelvic bone, and the waist line led to a flowing skirt that trailed on the floor when she walked. Along with the dress went matching velvet slippers.   
  
But she didn't care if she looked different.. she had begun to accept that this was who she was, a witch through and through...   
  
The wavering sounds of a flute caught her ear and she turned slightly to the left to catch the sound better, but no one was there.   
  
She looked around her in all directions, but the music seemed to be coming from no where...   
  
_Okay, now I'm going crazy..._   
  
"Hermione?"   
  
The music began to fade away and she searched harder for its source.   
  
"Hermione?"   
  
Now it was gone and she still hadn't found out where it came from.   
  
She turned to the speaker with a sigh and started. "Professor Lupin?"   
  
"Yes?"   
  
"What are you doing here?"   
  
"I thought you could use a friend." He put an arm around her shoulder and led her back to the house. "You know you shouldn't be out here, at least not without your cloak closed. It's freezing. Very un-natural for this time of year I think."   
  
He continued on with mindless chatter and she was thankful for it. It pushed the funeral and the strange music out of her head for the time being. For the rest of the hour he talked about how he was at Hogwarts for the summer taking care of "a few friends". But when she asked him, he wouldn't clarify. She merely shrugged, not feeling up to feeling further.   
  
But soon, the hour was up and Narcissa came down the stairs with Haven at her side looking slightly teary, but smiling all the same.   
  
"And who is this?" Remus said kneeling to Haven's four-year-old height.   
  
Haven smiled. "My name is Haven Granger sir, Who are you?"   
  
"I am Remus Lupin, I used to teach at Hogwarts School."   
  
Haven's face lit up as he liked to hear about the magical school that his sister attended. "Did you really? Mia tells me of it all the time!"   
  
"Mia?"   
  
"My sister, Her-her-meee... I can't say her name." He uttered the last part quiet softly and Remus had to lean in to hear it.   
  
Remus laughed heartily. "It's all right, her name gave our Bulgarian friend quiet a mouthful too."   
  
Hermione flushed to her hair line and smacked Remus's arm good naturedly. "Hush." She said softly.   
  
Haven turned a quizzical glance o his sister and asked with an innocent voice, "Who is he talking about Mia?"   
  
Hermione ignored Draco's sniggering as he leaned against the banister to the grand staircase. "No one brother." She said passing a hand over his blond curls and smiling down at him. "But how handsome you look today."   
  
"Nana helped me." He said referring to Narcissa. If you thought Hermione was hard for a four-year-old to pronounce, try getting them to say "Narcissa", one would think that there would be a limit to how many "S" sounds a child's mouth could make... apparently not. So Haven had stuck to calling Narcissa "Nana" or "Cissa" when he was upset.   
  
Hermione looked up at her caretaker and smiled softly. "Thank you."   
  
"No worries child." Narcissa passed an arm around Hermione's waist companionably and led her from the room and towards the front door leaving Draco and Remus to take Haven to the car.   
  
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Upon their return to the manor later that night, Hermione breathed a sigh of sadness. She walked to her bed and slowly switched the black gown for a less formal house gown. It was cut in the same style, but was made of a thinner material. She slid her feet into the matching shoes and sighed. Would the rest of her life be like this? Living in the lap of comfort while everyone she loved was snatched away from her?   
  
If that was the cost, she'd rather live in a box in an alley.   
  
She sighed and sat in an easy chair by the window. As she cast her gaze about the room for something to do, she caught sight of the still unopened package from her mother sitting on the cherry wood desk against the far wall.   
  
She pushed herself up out of the chair and walked quickly to the other side of the room and picked up the thick envelope as she sat in the soft desk chair.   
  
She pulled a letter opener from the desk drawer and slit the package open.   
  
A thick book, several sheets of paper, and a key fell out. But what caught Hermione's eye was a shrunken trunk that hit the desk top with a small thud. She picked it up in her hand and weighed it. Quickly doing the conversions in her head, she guessed that it would be pretty heavy when put back to its normal size.   
  
She set it to the side and picked up the book, flipping through the pages. Her mother's familiar handwriting met her eyes and for a moment she teared up.   
  
But no, that wouldn't do, for she could not read with tears fogging her vision. She blinked the tears form her eyes and noticed that the aforementioned book was in reality a journal; more specifically a journal of her seventh year at Hogwarts School of witch craft and wizardry.   
  
She held it up in wonder and red the first few lines of the first page.   
  
_**August 31, 1979**   
  
I have purchased this journal with the hopes of replacing the last one that James Potter still has not returned to me. Cissy had promised to get it back before the end of the spring term last year, but needless to say, she got sidetracked.   
  
But embarrassing matters aside, my seventh year is beginning and I am in a certain state of anxiety over it. Where am I to go after graduation? I know mother wants me to marry that Gladstone boy from Hufflepuff, but he's a pansy and he's not very intelligent either. To marry him would be an insult to my intelligence and his lack of that particular trait.   
  
Maybe I'll go to University and study Transfiguration or Charms...   
  
I don't know yet. Good thing I still have the rest of the year to think about it.   
  
I will write again as soon as I reach the castle, but mum is fussing at me to go to sleep so I'll have to put this away now.   
  
Goodnight._   
  
Hermione closed the journal gently and smiled softly. Then she moved towards the stack of papers, it was a very long letter.   
  
She read the date on the top of the page and frowned. _**April 7, 1997**_ She shook her head. _That's impossible. How would um possibly know that she was going to die then?_   
  
She shrugged and began to read the letter.   
  
_My dear darling Hermione,   
  
A witch as smart as you are must already be wondering how I possibly knew of my death months before it happened. I will tell you. Often I have prophetic dreams, not enough to make me a true clairvoyant, but enough to let me know what's coming. Does that satisfy your need to know? If not I am sorry daughter, I do not know anymore.   
  
I am writing this letter because I must tell you, I myself, am a witch. This I am most sure Narcissa has already told you, and the fact that Richard is neither your father nor Haven's father. Your real father and I met at Hogwarts and fell in love, but I am getting ahead of myself. I will start at the beginning.   
  
My parents were wealthy in the wizarding world. My parents' names were Decius and Morgan Richter. My father worked for the ministry and my mother was a housewife as all well-bred pureblooded women are. Right after she graduated form Hogwarts, my mum had first Jordan then me. Jordan was to be the heir and for many years, my parents tried and tried for "the spare", but they never got one.   
  
So it was horrible to them when my brother was murdered at the end of my seventh year and my parents married me off to a trustworthy muggle. At the time, I was already pregnant with you, but again, I'm getting ahead of myself.   
  
Jordan, being five years older than myself was already in his sixth year by the time I was accepted at Hogwarts. I was sorted into Gryffindor along with Cissy and had a wonderful time. Along with Lily Evans, Cissy and I formed a lasting friendship that brought us through many trials, especially the means of your conception and birth.   
  
In the beginning of my seventh year, I was paired with a Slytherin for an assignment, needless to say, as a true Gryffindor should react, I blew up. I had refused to work with him, but our professor was insistent that we work together, and through that assignment, we formed a sort of friendship. From that friendship came more and from that more came you.   
  
I know that you are trying t figure who he might be, but you must read my journal, all will be explained... Please daughter, do not fear him, if he is indeed still alive, if not, do not fear his memory, for he always loved you especially of any of his three children. He loves Haven too, for he is the youngest and the most spoiled. But you were always his little girl. He hated having to hate you, but he was always proud of you and your intelligence.   
  
Please Hermione, once you are finished with my journal, the trunk will swell to its normal size and unlock and inside are things from my girlhood that I want you to treasure as much as I did.   
  
Also, the golden key is the key to the Richter family vault number 717. After Jordan was killed, his inheritance was split into thirds, two went to me and one to your aunt who dies shortly after and the money passed to Edward. But the two thirds left to me was a large sum, some thousands I believe, and I have in turn left it to you and your brother to do with what you will. Your father I believe, if he has passed has left you a rather large sum of money also to split between the two of you. Use it wisely my daughter, for I will not be there to help you manage in the future.   
  
One last word to you my dear, do not mourn for me too long because I disliked the melancholy in life and I am sure that I shall do the same in death. Please, mourn one week for me, but no more...because then it will be too long and you will become melancholy, and I shall dislike that very much.   
  
I love you with all my heart, with all my soul, and with all my very being,   
  
Mummy._   
  
That reminder to live her life finally and roughly shocked Hermione out of her week-long stupor and she smiled, truly smiled for the first time that week.   
  
Hermione dried her tears at the signature. The parting words were that of the same phrase her mother would say to her every night before she went to sleep. Sighing she fingered the leather binding of the journal and decided that she'd begin to read the next day figuring she'd had enough emotional excitement for one day. She picked up the key to the vault and, after eyeing it for a moment slipped it into the small velvet pouch at her waist.   
  
Then she stood intending to ask Narcissa when he next trip to Gringotts would be.   
  
As she walked down the main staircase, the soft sound of a piano met her ears and she followed it to what Narcissa had introduced her to as "The Grand Ball Room". She pushed pen the door a crack and slid in silently.   
  
Narcissa stood in the middle of the floor with a dark haired boy about Hermione's age and Draco sat at the piano with a young girl with dark hair. Hermione, who hadn't known they were having visitors today jus leaned against the wall by the door and watched.   
  
She recognized both of the visitors as two of the Slytherins. Seventh year Blaise Zabini being Narcissa's dance partner, and intelligent sixth year Rachel Caddo as Draco's duet partner.   
  
Narcissa was going about the nuances of a waltz so that the dark haired boy would not crush his partner's feet and, upon Hermione's entrance into the room, was in the middle of slapping him on his forehead for nearly breaking some of her toes.   
  
"That's enough for today Blaise." Narcissa said wearily taking a seat on a nearby chair. "My feet can't take anymore of this torture."   
  
"I'm very sorry aunt." Said the dark haired boy.   
  
"Oi! You're killing my poor mother's feet Zabini! What's the matter with you?" Draco said good naturedly from the piano where he and his companion continued at their duet.   
  
"Bloody hell Draco! I said 'I'm sorry'! Let's try again." Blaise looked a bit hopeful, but Narcissa's look crushed his expression.   
  
Hermione, taking another step into the room cleared her throat softly. "Blaise, I could dance with you if you like..."   
  
Everyone's faces turned towards her quite quickly because they hadn't known of another person in the room and she smiled softly. "But only if you don't crush my toes. If you do I'll hex you into next century."   
  
Draco smirked. "Granger's finally back! Welcome home to earth, Love."   
  
"Stuff it Malfoy." Hermione snapped.   
  
Blaise walked forward and smiled kindly at her. "Would you please accept this dance?" He said bowing low.   
  
Hermione gave him a curtsey worthy of a debutante and placed her small hand delicately in his own. "I would love to."   
  
Blaise turned to Draco and his companion and snapped quickly. "Music maestros!"   
  
"Yes master!" Said Rachel in a very frightening manner.   
  
"A duet!" Narcissa said clapping her hands.   
  
"Mother, we just played a duet!"   
  
"Play another! And Draconis, whining is unseemly, it's doesn't fit you, so don't do it."   
  
Draco flipped through the music book on the piano for a moment before he found one. "Ah! Perfect!" Then, bowing melodramatically said, "Beethoven's Sonata Operetta No. 1 in D minor: Allegro Molto E Con Brio, Adagio Molto, and Finale- Pretissimo. Or rather in English: "I'm only playing this so my overbearing mother will be happy'." He said this al with a small smirk in his mother's direction and a wink for everyone else.   
  
Hermione was still having a hard time getting used to this playful and fun side of Draco Malfoy who she'd always known to be patronizing and evil. But she smiled at him nevertheless and, said quickly to Blaise, "Are you leading?"   
  
He nodded while looking into her eyes and she smiled at him. Then she started to mouth the numbers to the steps, "1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3..." The dance went on and on for the entire 18:51 that it tog for the tune to end.   
  
Not once did Blaise step on Hermione's feet.   
  
At the end he gave a bow and she gave a curtsey and Narcissa clapped for both dancers and players.   
  
"Hermione," She said, "you have brought out the best in my student. I think together you may well dance better that Draco and Rachel!"   
  
The couple on the piano bench scoffed. "Not with my fat lump of a friend here!" Said Rachel. "His feet are just too massive for his body."   
  
Blaise opened his mouth in mock outrage, then proceeded to stalk her around the room while she laughed.   
  
Hermione took a seat on the bench next to Draco ad started to pluck out a small tune.   
  
"You danced quite nicely." He said.   
  
"Thank you."   
  
"Look, I just wanted to officially apologize for everything I've... done to you in the past... My father-"   
  
"Was a domineering arse-hole...I know, I met him once or twice, and on both occasions he was more than I could care for." She said quite decidedly.   
  
Draco smiled down on her. "You know, there's going to be a ball here next week."   
  
"Really? And when was someone planning on telling me?" Her fingers continued to dance along the piano keys.   
  
Draco's mouth gaped speechlessly for a moment, then he shut it with an audible click and grinned. "Right now." His fingers joined hers on the keys.   
  
Blaise snatched Rachel to him and began a mock waltz with dramatized moves.   
  
Hermione smiled. "Well, aren't I lucky then?"   
  
"Actually you are. Rachel was just bring up the subject of dress robes to me before you walked in. We were going to go to Diagon Alley. Would you like to come with us?"   
  
"I would, thank you. I need to check up on some things while I'm there if you don't mind."   
  
"Not at all."   
  
Hermione was suddenly struck by how strange this all was. Here she was having a polite conversation with Draco Malfoy of all people. One insult had not been thrown in the whole duration of their conversation.   
  
Draco stood and said. "Blaise, stop torturing Caddo and let's get moving. It's still early, we should get there before the rush."   
  
Blaise tossed his sister over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and smirked. "Yes sir!"   
  
Rachel beat on his back laughing. "Put me down you great lump!"   
  
"Great is the precise word my love!" Blaise said.   
  
They walked out into the front hall, grabbed their cloaks form the hall closet and then walked into the parlor where the fireplace was.   
  
Narcissa looked up from a book she was reading to Haven who sat on a low stool in front of her. "Where re you all off to?"   
  
"Diagon alley." Draco said. "We need robes for next week."   
  
"Have fun, be careful." Narcissa said going back to her book.   
  
"Bye Mia." Haven said with a small wave.   
  
"That your little brother?" Blaise asked as Draco disappeared into the fireplace, followed by Rachel.   
  
Hermione nodded. "He's only four."   
  
Blaise shook his head sadly, then watched as Hermione also disappeared into the fireplace.   
  
Then a four were gone.   
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**A/N:** Well... I am one upset puppy!! I have gotten no reviews yet! This makes me upset! PLEASE tell me what you think of my story!   
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	6. Children Are the Ones who Will Shape the...

  
  
**A/N**: OMG!!!! I finally got reviews!!! Thank you **Smiles28**!!! Thank you **Alyssa Rose**!!!!!   
  
**Alyssa Rose:** yes there are ships, D/G, H/OC, and a triangle B/Hr/R so...yeah...I'm glad you are enjoying this story. I made you bite your nails??? Wow... cool...   
  
**Summary**: What's up with Harry? Why are Hermione and Ginny disappearing all the time? Who is this enticing new Gryffindor? And just where in all hells is Ron? Reincarnation is a strange and dangerous thing that toys with the present in hopes that the present will somehow turn out like the past, but will the past repeat itself in this occurrence, or will the reincarnation of the great King Arthur fail to save the world as we know it from a foe greater than any seen in this word yet?   
  
**Disclaimer**: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.   
  


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And We Thought it Was the End   
  
Chapter 5   
  
Children are the Ones who Will Shape the Future   
  


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**June 9, 1997**   
  
Ginny awoke slowly. She let her eyes crack open and peer into the sun lit infirmary. For a while her mind was blissfully blank, still stuck in that plane between wakefulness and a deep drug induced sleep.   
  
The windows on the far side of the infirmary were open wide to let in the warm summer air and the white curtains flapped in the soft breeze.   
  
Ginny stretched her arms and rolled onto her back. Her legs still weren't working it seemed. Well, that would be fixed in time.   
  
"Morning sunshine." Came a soft voice to her right.   
  
She twisted her head to look over her shoulder and smiled softly at Aya. "Hullo. How long was I out?"   
  
"Two days."   
  
"Ok." She smiled. "I feel soooooooo much better."   
  
"That's wonderful." Aya smiled softly at her. The first time she'd been raped the psychological damage had been massive and she'd taken _months_ to get better. She hadn't even started to smile until well into the first month of her second year most of which she'd finished at The Lodge, Remus and Aya's home. So it was in Remus's words, "a bloody miracle" that she'd snapped back to reality so fast. "Let me help you sit up and then you can have some water."   
  
She helped Ginny into a sitting position and gave her a goblet-ful of icy water. Ginny drank deeply and smiled giving the empty goblet back to Aya. "That feels sooo good." She leaned back into her pillows, then started up again. "Albus said that he had a surprise for me...what is it?"   
  
Aya held up her hands in front of her face. "OHHHH!!! No! You're not gonna get it outa me!!! Not this time missy! Go work your magic on someone else! Back! Back!" She held her fingers up in front of her in a cross and backed away from Ginny's bed. "I'm not talking!"   
  
Ginny just stared at her friend, then promptly started to laugh. She clutched her stomach as she screamed in laughter. It wasn't long before she rolled off the bed altogether. She landed on her stomach hard and had the wind knocked out of her.   
  
For a moment it was completely silent and Ginny looked around in bewilderment. Then a smile cracked her face and she started to laugh again.   
  
Aya sighed, more than slightly exasperated and helped her back into bed. "You're welcome for the comic relief, we'll be back again on Friday, please leave your tips at the door." She said sarcastically.   
  
"Oh, I'm sorry Aya! But it feel so great to laugh..." Ginny said, her smile not failing.   
  
"Well, it's great to see that someone's feeling better." Remus said walking into Ginny's little enclosure.   
  
"Hello Remus." Ginny said softly.   
  
"Hello Gin." He sat in the chair next to her bed. "Albus is on his way."   
Her smile got bigger. "With my surprise??"   
  
"Yes, with your surprise."   
  
Ginny clapped her hands. "Oh fun! What is it?"   
  
Remus smiled. "I'm not saying anything." For some reason Aya started to laugh. Ginny's smile only got bigger.   
  
"What?" Remus looked from one girl to the other. "What's so funny?"   
"Hello?" Came a sudden voice from the outside of the curtain. "Ginny dear, are you decent?"   
  
Ginny looked at Remus and Aya. "Who is that?" The voice sounded familiar, but she couldn't place it. "Who is it?" She asked them again.   
  
Remus smiled and Aya laughed harder.   
  
Then came a voice that made everything make sense again. "Mamma!"   
"Britannia!" Ginny's face split into a relieved smile as the curtain was ripped aside by fumbling children's hands and a small ball of raven hair came hurtling towards the bed and hopped deftly into her lap.   
  
"Mamma!" Two small and slender arms encircled Ginny's neck and she hugged the small body to her tearfully.   
  
She looked down at the small pixie like face and smiled. "Hullo, love."   
  
Britannia Weasley took after her mother in stature, but took after her father in looks. She was small and slender, but was strong as a hippogriff and had the lungs of a siren. Blue black curls fell into her eyes and over her shoulders and she had eyes the color of the Mediterranean Sea. Like her mother, she had a cheery disposition, but she had her father's temper; when she got angry, you knew it.   
  
But right now, Ginny could feel the happy aura just pulsing off the five-year-old's body. Her mere presence calmed down Ginny's spirit to the point where she was ready to drop asleep.   
  
Shaking off the waves of exhaustion, Ginny smoothed the curs away from Britannia's forehead and looked into the little girl's eyes. They were as clear as the summer seas, not a cloud in sight. There had been to trouble in this little soul for sometime.   
  
Ginny looked up at Remus and Aya. "How...?"   
  
"When we heard that you had disappeared right off the grounds, we brought her here, she can't be touched inside the castle. She's been here under the ruse that she's my recently-orphaned-neice."   
  
Ginny only nodded and buried her face in Britannia's curles.   
  
"Mamma! You'll mess 'em up!" Giggled the little girl. "Auntie put nice ribbons in. Do you see them? They match with my dress!"   
  
Giny only smiled and hugged Brittania to her chest agan. 

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Three hours later, Ginny was ready to suffocate herself under her pillow for sheer lack of anything to do. Brittani had gone to take a nap and Ginny and Aya were just sitting there.   
  
"I. Am. So. Bloody. Bored." Ginny said.   
  
"Well, we could do something..." Aya said.   
  
"Like what?"   
  
"Play exploding snap?"   
  
"Done it."   
  
"Play wizards chess?"   
  
"I whipped Remus five times in a row..."   
  
"Um...sing?"   
  
"I. Don't. Sing." Ginny's voice had an icy edge that confused Aya.   
  
"You love to sing, since when don't you?"   
  
"Since I decided that I didn't like being tortured into doing so." Ginny snapped.   
  
Aya only stared at her.   
  
_It was her second week at Tom's hideout. She looked around the lavishly decorated bedroom that he kept her locked in and sighed. She didn't want any of this, she just wanted to go home. She wanted him to stop coming to her every night and she wanted him to just leave her alone...   
  
She sighed and stared out the large window at the countryside. The green grass and blue sky called to her, but she was locked in the room.   
  
Suddenly the door swung open. Of course, it was Tom again. He never bothered knocking, he just barged in whenever he wanted. He stalked towards the fireplace and sat himself in one of the large chairs there.   
  
She only glanced at him, then turned back to the window.   
  
"**Come here Virginia.**" He said.   
  
Like always, she could feel her limbs beginning to obey him, but this time, she stayed stubbornly in her seat.   
  
"**I said come here Virginia**."   
  
Still she stayed in her seat fighting against the spell. "I'd rather stay here thank you." She said firmly.   
  
Suddenly, the pull was so strong, she fairly flew across the room and landed on her knees in front of his chair. She looked up and met his angry eyes.   
  
"**When I tell you to do something, I expect to have it done immediately. Is that understood**?"   
  
She didn't say anything, only glared stubbornly at him.   
  
"**Thank you**." He said.   
  
Ginny felt herself stand, then sit on the low stool near his side. She flinched as his hand sifted through her curls and tried not to throw up on the carpet. For a moment he was quiet. Then he said. "**Sing for me.**"   
  
Ginny stayed silent, staring resolutely into the flames.   
  
"**I said SING**."   
  
"No."   
  
"**SING**!"   
  
"No!"   
  
He whipped his wand from his robe pocket and leveled it at her head. "**Sing or else**."   
  
"No." She was trembling violently from fear and compulsion, but the compulsion was only the spell.   
  
"**CRUCIO**!"   
  
Ginny fell limp to the floor, then began to twitch as spasms of pain tore through her body. After what seemed like an eternity of pain, he lifted the curse and stared down at her. "**Now sing**."   
  
Ginny dragged herself back onto the stool and opened her mouth, then coughed up blood. She groaned and whipped it from her chin with the edge of her black gown.   
  
"**SING damn you**!"   
  
Again, she tried to sing, but only coughed up more blood.   
  
"**Crucio**!"   
  
Ginny fell from the stool again moaning in agony. Tears clouded her vision and she squeezed her eyes shut.   
  
The pain lifted and she lay gasping and coughing on the hearth. Tom stood over her with his wand held lazily in his hands. "**Now, sing**." Was his command.   
  
Again, Ginny opened her mouth to sing, and promptly retched on the carpet. It was completely made of blood.   
  
He scowled down at her disgusted then walked to her and hoisted her to her feet. He glared at her than said, "**I'll teach you to disobey me**." Then he dragged her to the bed and threw her on it.   
  
For the first time, Ginny didn't fight him, she couldn't even get up the energy to move, so how could she fight him off?   
  
When she felt him spill his seed in her, she twisted over to the side of the bed and retched blood again.   
  
After he pulled out of her and redressed, he stared down at her naked form disgustedly. "**Only the weak and cowards can't withstand the torture curse. So you will stay with them now**." He walked to the corner and pulled a golden bell cord.   
  
Within seconds, a block robed figure was standing in her doorway "Yes Master?" It was the same black robed figure who always healed her after she'd been tortured or whipped. He was so kind to her, what was he doing in a place like this?   
  
"**Take her to the dungeons, see that she learns how to withstand the curse**."   
  
The robed man nodded and walked to the bed. He wrapped her limp form in the sheets from the bed and hoisted her into his arms. Then he walked out the room.   
  
Ginny caught Tom's scathing look as she was carried out the room and groaned. WHY did she have to be so stubborn? WHY?   
  
She was surprised to say the least when the robed figure spoke as they reached the dungeon. "You should have just done what he wanted."   
  
Then she was laid carefully onto a bed of straw and the heavy wooden door was slammed shut and locked securely.   
_  
Ginny looked up at Aya with hooded eyes. "I just don't want to sing ok?"   
  
Aya shrugged unaware of the mental flash back Ginny had just gone through. "Whatever." She looked out the window. "We could go outside..."   
  
"Really?" Ginny looked u a her, her eyes wide, "Are you serious?"   
  
"Yeah, we could put you in a wheelchair and take a stroll through the gar-grounds." Aya caught herself before she mentioned the gardens and substituted a word.   
  
"Ok, will Madame Pomfrey be alright with that?" Ginny asked.   
  
"Oh who cares?? That woman needs a holiday something terrible." Aya stood and conjured a wheelchair and helped Ginny into it. She placed a blanket over her legs and rolled her out of the infirmary.

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It was very green outside, and very warm, but Ginny was so happy about being outside that she didn't even notice the heat. Aya rolled her right up to the lake edge and plopped on the grass next to her.   
  
"This is wonderful. Wake me up when you want to go back inside." She flung one arm to cover her eyes and promptly fell asleep.   
  
Ginny giggled at her and watched the squid lazily propel himself back and forth across the water.

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One week later:   
  
Ginny had just woken up from a short siesta. Britannia was in her lap with a book and Ginny was reading it to her softly.   
  
"_'Are we riding far tonight Gandalf?' asked Merry after a while. 'I don't know how you feel with small rag-tag dangling behind you; but the rag-tag is tired and will be glad to stop dangling and lie down.'_ " Ginny paused as Britt laughed, then continued, "_'So you heard that' said Gandalf. 'Don't let it rankle! Be thankful no longer words were aimed at you. He had his eyes on you. If it is any comfort to your pride, I should say that, at the moment, you and Pippin are more in his thoughts than all the rest of us. Who you are; how you came there, and why; what you know; whether you were captured, and if so, how you escaped when all the orcs perished – it is with those little riddles that the great mind of Saruman is troubled. A sneer from him, Meriadoc, is a compliment, if you feel honoured by his concern._' " She waited again when Brit burst into giggles.   
  
"He's just like Sev!" Brit said clutching her stomach.   
  
Ginny only smiled. At first, she'd been wary of her daughter's connection to Professor Snape (the only professor she could cal by name), but over time (more like a day or two) she'd been able to accept it and move on.   
  
She looked down at the book as Britt's giggles subsided. "_'Thank you!' said Merry. 'But it is a greater honour to dangle at your tail, Gandalf_-' " She stopped as the curtains opened and Remus stepped in.   
  
" 'Ello Uncle!" Britt said happily.   
  
Remus ruffled her curls. "Good afternoon little one." He looked at Ginny. "You have a visitor."   
  
Ginny frowned up at him. "Who?"   
  
Remus only smiled and stepped aside revealing a tall figure with light hair and dark eyes. "Hello my Lady."   
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A/N: Well?   
  
News: I'm not really at home, and I won't be for the rest of the week, so updates might be very sparse and uncontrolled.   
  
Have fun reading!!!!!

Also, I'm thinking of changing the name of the story...This just isn't catchy enough. Tell me what you think please!!!!!  
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	7. Finding Father

  
  
**A/N:** Hello, hello, hello!!! Have fun reading!! The chapter name is a play on the Movie title _Finding Forester_. And I still haven't made up my mind about the story title yet... I'm not sure what I want to do with it...   
  
**Alyssa Rose:** The family info is coming…I just wanted to get a bit about Ginny's "experience" out before I send someone to visit her. And to the speediness of it, like I said, I'm not at home, so my chapters are going pretty fast, but I'll try and slow them down for you!! :)   
  
**Summary:** What's up with Harry? Why are Hermione and Ginny disappearing all the time? Who is this enticing new Gryffindor? And just where in all hells is Ron? Reincarnation is a strange and dangerous thing that toys with the present in hopes that the present will somehow turn out like the past, but will the past repeat itself in this occurrence, or will the reincarnation of the great King Arthur fail to save the world as we know it from a foe greater than any seen in this word yet?   
  
**Disclaimer:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.   
  


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And We Thought it Was the End   
  
Chapter 6   
  
Finding Father   
  


  
  
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**June 16, 1997**   
  
Hermione Granger stretched luxuriously in bed and smiled in her sleep. The soft silk of her down comforter was sinfully comfortable and she didn't want to get up just yet. She wanted to take a jog around the grounds, but that could wait.   
  
Soon she sighed knowing she'd have to get up sometime. Running a hand through her hair, she could feel the tangles and the knots and wild curls that were her own unique style of bed head: bush head.   
  
She placed her feet on the soft carpet and dragged herself off the bed and into the bathroom. She turned on the shower to its hottest and climbed in, clothes and all.   
  
Her curses were heard several rooms down the hallway and one Draco Malfoy housed in a bedroom two doors down was at that time wondering why she just didn't strip to her skins before getting in the shower.   
  
Hermione walked into the hallway thirty minutes later feeling as if she looked considerably more refreshed than she had getting out of bed.   
  
_Which is more than can be said for some people..._ She thought as her brother passed her on his way to the third floor commons. She messed his hair up a bit more and continued walking in the other direction towards the stairs and into the foyer.   
  
Narcissa was walking through as Hermione made her way towards the front door.   
  
"Where are you going my dear?" Narcissa asked with a slightly disapproving glance at her attire.   
  
Hermione looked down at her running clothes, a pair of biking shorts, a running bra and tennis shoes. "Running." She said simply. "I'll be back for breakfast."   
  
"Be careful on the drive." Narcissa said as Hermione went out the door and turned towards the park. She decided to run to the gate and back three times, that would be roughly two miles...right?   
  
As she ran, her thoughts of the past week raced through her head.   
  
Upon reaching her room that night after returning from Diagon Alley, Hermione had started reading her mother's journal, and had finished it the next day. But blast it all! She was no where near figuring out who her father was!   
  
Leave it to her mother to be completely criptic about who she was dating. She'd blotted out the name every time it was mentioned, it was almost as if she'd been worried someone would read her journal without her knowledge.   
  
Hermione only knew a few things about her father, he was a Quidditch player in her mother's seventh year, he was a senior prefect (or seventh year prefect), and he was very rich... that was all, and it wasn't much. It could have been anyone...   
  
She sighed and ran back to the house to shower and get ready for the day. "I mean it's not like I have a year book to see who played Quidditch that year." She muttered to herself.   
  
Suddenly her head snapped up just in time to catch the overhang in the hallway. "YOW!!!" She clutched her head, feeling only a dull pain, her mind was speeding around it coming to conclusion after conclusion. "Why didn't I think of that before??" She muttered out loud. "I mean really! It's kind of obvious, hell it is obvious. What the hell is wrong with me? Why the bleeding hell did that take me so bloody long to figure that out?" She was pacing back and forth in front of the stairs now not really paying attention to her surrounds, despite the fact that that's how she ran into the overhang in the first place. She peered at the stone outset and grinned grimly. "Maybe I should run into things more often..."   
  
"Talking to yourself Granger? Isn't that the first sign of insanity?" Blaise stood leaning against the door jam of the dinning room smirking at her.   
  
"What the bleeding hell are you doing here again Zabini?" Hermione snapped at him. She was a bit put off that he'd heard her talking to herself, and that she was dressed in sweaty clothes.   
  
"Breakfast and dancing lessons." He said. "Party's tonight, don't want to look like a fool." He gave her a glance. "Speaking of fools, you're not wearing that are you?"   
  
Hermione looked down at her attire. "Maybe I will, maybe I won't." She smirked at him.   
  
"Honestly Zabs, leave the poor girl alone." Blaise's head snapped forward as someone popped him across the back of his head. "Hey Mia." Rachel walked to her. "Sorry about him, he hasn't had his coffee so he isn't particularly sane yet."   
  
Hermione smiled at her. "Oh well, I just ignore him anyway."   
  
Rachel eyed her bra and shorts. "Let's go get you cleaned up. You look a mess."   
  
"Pain = beauty love. It takes a lot to stay this way." Hermione said. Plus I have a strict training schedule that I have no choice but to stick to. She admitted in her head. Can't defeat the dark lord with out knowing how…   
  
Rachel only shook her head and led Hermione up the stairs and into her room.   
  
Over the past two weeks, Rachel and Hermione had become inseparable. It didn't help that Blaise was there almost everyday to keep Draco entertained. Rachel, his orphaned cousin, naturally came with him.   
  
Hermione riffeled through her closet for something to wear. Naturally, with her entrance into a different level of wizarding society, her wardrobe had doubled and tripled since her arrival at Malfoy Manor, all thanks to Rachel and Narcissa of course. Hermione pulled a deep purple day gown out of her closet and held it up to her body. "What about this?" She said turning to her friend.   
  
Rachel turned from the desk where she'd been going over Helen's journal. She'd been helping Hermione to decipher it all week. She twisted one long chestnut curl around her pointer finger and screwed up her sapphire eyes. "Hmm... I dunno, Narcissa's wearing lavender, you wouldn't want to seem like you're trying to match her." Rachel herself wore a simple royal blue gown.   
  
Hermione nodded. "I hadn't noticed her wearing that..." Then she turned back to the wardrobe. "What about this one?" This one was also a day gown, but a bit more elaborate. It was hunter green with gold embrdery around the collar, cuffs, and hem, and it had a braided gold belt that went round her waist.   
  
Rachel looked up from the journal again "Perfect." She looked away from Hermione. "You'll match Zabs..."   
  
"What was that?" Asked Hermione who had gone back inside the wardrobe in search of matching shoes.   
  
"Nothing doll." Rachel said smiling to herself. They really did make the perfect pair. She watched as Hermione darted into the bathroom and started the shower.   
  
The door was closed to a crack so they could still talk, but so that Hermione could have her privacy.   
  
"You know, I figured out a way that we could figure out who He is." Hermione said form the bathroom.   
  
"Really?"   
  
"Yeah. Mum says that he was a Quidditch player, a prefect, and rich. If we could find a yearbook or something we could see who fits the bill and narrow it down from there."   
  
"That could work..." Rachel said. "I think there are some from Lucius's years at Hogwarts in his study."   
  
The shower shut off and she could hear Hermione's wet feet padding across the marble floor. "Can we go in there?"   
  
"I don't see why not. It's being used as a storage room for all his things. Narcissa didn't want them anywhere near her."   
  
"What about-?" Hermione's voice was muffled as she pulled the dress over her head.   
  
"All the dark arts things have been confiscate by the ministry or sold to a benefactor." Rachel said peering through the journal "There's nothing remotely dangerous there."   
  
Hermione came out of the bathroom in a cloud of steam. "Then I don't see why we can't go. Should we bring the boys along?"   
  
Rachel nodded. "We probably should, they would feel left out if we didn't include them in this."   
  
Hermione nodded and rang for a house elf. When the little fellow arrived, she sent him off with a message to Blaise and Draco to meet them at her room in half an hour. She pulled the towel from around her head and her dirty blond curls fell in waves and curls around her face. "Is half an hour fine?"   
  
"We can leave as soon as I do something about your hair. If the boys have to wait, so be it." Rachel said seating her friend at the vanity. "Honestly, I don't see how you deal with this bush..."   
  
"It's calmed down!" Hermione said defensively. If she was touchy about anything, it was her hair.   
  
"Mmmm hmmmm." Rachel murmured. She had pins stuck in her mouth as she twisted Hermione's hair tightly to her head in little buns everywhere on her scalp.   
  
"Isn't that going to look really weird?" Hermione said reaching up to finger one of the coils. She waved to the boys as they trooped in and sat near the fireplace arguing abut Quidditch or something.   
  
"I'm not going to leave it like this for forever, just until we start getting ready for tonight, it'll turn your wild bush into a set of organized curls, smaller than mine, but it'll fit your face. And when I put it up for you, it'll look really pretty. We both get to wear our hair up tonight."   
  
Hermione smiled at her friend, knowing how important this was or her. In the posh wizarding society, it was custom for girls to wear their hair down at parties and balls until their seventeenth birthday, then they could put their hair up as a sign of an entrance into womanhood. Then, after they were married, or when they came into their inheritance, which ever came first, they added a tiara to the hair.   
  
Hermione had learned so much in etiquette lessons with Narcissa over the past two weeks that her mind was ready to burst, but she was glad she knew all this, or she'd surely make a fool of herself at the ball.   
  
Rachel pinned down the last coil and placed a large hat over Hermione's head. "It's only for now, and it's kinda weird, but it'll have to do." Rachel said. "Alright, lets go loot Lucius's study!"   
  
Rachel grabbed the journal from the desk and held it in her hand. Then she and Hermione linked arms and strode out of her room, the boys and Gwydion followed close at their heels.   
  
It was a long way to the other side of the house, the deserted West Wing. The secluded wing wasn't large, only a few rooms and only on one floor, but it was shut off from the rest of the house by a set of huge double doors made from heavy wood. It wasn't locked, but no one but the house elves went in there.   
  
Hermione and Rachel stopped in front of the close doors and stared at the heavy handle. The boys stopped just behind them.   
  
Hermione shot a look at Draco and Blaise over her shoulder. "Your mother _is_ okay with this, right?" She asked Draco.   
  
"Are you kidding? She's desperate to get this place cleaned out, she was going to hire someone to do it. The fact that we're doing it and it gives us something to do makes her even happier."   
  
Hermione said ok and smiled at them. "Well, here goes." She took hold of the door handle and gave a great tug. To her surprise, the door swung open easily, and it wasn't that heavy at all.   
  
She didn't see Draco give her a surprised and confused look, she headed right into the corridor.   
  
"Wow it's dark in here!" Rachel said. But just as she said that, a torch holder near her sprang to life with bright fire. She shrieked and jumped into Draco's arms.   
  
"Wow Caddo, didn't know you felt that way about me." Draco deadpanned.   
  
"Shut-up." She said whacking his arm. She pushed away form him and continued down the hall way ahead of everyone. As she walked, the torches sprang to life one by one.   
  
Hermione walked a bit slower, inspecting each portrait on the walls. They were all members of the Malfoy family.   
  
But it was one portrait at the end of the hall that drew her gaze. There were three girls sitting companionably around a fireplace. One had black hair and black eyes, another had fire red hair and liquid brown eyes, and the last had white blond hair and watery blue eyes. Except for hair and eye color, they all looked slightly alike, except for their expressions. The black haired one looked ready to throw the book she was holding at the person painting the picture, the red-head looked happy and jovial as she was propped against the side of a massive white sheepdog that looked remarkably like Gwydion, and the blonde looked at the artist with a soft and calm smile as she held an embroidery hoop in one hand and a sharp needle in the other.   
  
But what drew Hermione's attention about this portrait was that, unlike al the others in the hallway, this one neither spoke, nor moved. It was completely silent and still.   
  
Hermione now noted Draco's presence beside her. "Who are they?" She asked softly.   
  
"They are Bellatrix, Andromeda and Narcissa Black before they became Bellatrix Lestrange, Andromeda Tonks, and Narcissa Malfoy." He smiled ruefully. "My mother and her sisters. It was the only painting Lucius let her bring here. The rest are at her family's home in Wales. She brought this because no matter how much they went through she still loved her sisters. She was always the peace maker of the family, especially between Bella and Andy. If it weren't for her, either one or the other would most likely be dead by now." He grabbed her gently by her arm and pulled her towards the study. "Come on, we have a job to do."   
  
They entered the study and Hermione was immediately taken by how large it was, and how many books were there. Book cases covered every wall but one where huge floor-to-ceiling windows took up the walls. Despite the fact that boxes covered most of the space n the center of the room, Hermione could tell that it was of a formidable size.   
  
Rachel was already going through the boxes on one side, and Blaise had started on the other side of the pile.   
  
Hermione looked at Draco. "Guess that leaves us with the book cases." She said. "You start at that end, and I'll take the other, we'll meet in the middle." She started at her end and riffled through the book cases. She was extremely thankful of the sliding ladder, it made it extremely easy for her to reach the top shelf. Though she was by no means petite, that top shelf was a good twelve feet off the ground.   
  
She was smack in the middle of the set of shelves when she came to the set of seven yearbooks. "They're right here!" She called out. Rachel and Blaise took the time to glance up from what they were doing, then they went back to sorting through the boxes.   
  
Draco stood at the bottom of her ladder. "Toss them to me and we can look at them town here."   
  
"Well, we only need the one from, the '78-'79 school year... Ah! Here it is, the last one. Catch Draco!" She dropped it, completely forgetting to tell him how heavy it was. Accident, or no?   
  
"Thanks a lot Granger!" He snapped.   
  
"Hey, you forget, that name no longer applies to me by blood..." She said climbing down the ladder.   
  
"Yeah, yeah, yeah..." He muttered taking it over o the now empty desk. He placed it in the middle and sat in one of the chairs on either side. Hermione took the other chair on the opposite side. She opened a drawer I the desk ad pulled out a quill and parchment, then she handed them to Draco. "Take down names as I read. But first right this down."   
  
"What am I a scribe?"   
  
"For the moment, yes, now write before I break every single one of your digits off."   
  
"Yes ma'am!"   
  
"Write: Requirements, played Quidditch, senior prefect, and rich."   
  
"How will we know if he was rich or not?"   
  
"That's why you're here."   
  
"Oh."   
  
"Yeah, oh." Hermione made a face at him and opened the book to the Quidditch section. "Ok, let's see... There were three seventh years on the Gryffindor team, only two were a senior prefects, write down Remus Lupin ad Frank Longbottom." She shuddered thinking she might be Neville's _sister_...   
  
"What no Potter?" Draco said with a horrible smirk. "Your hair fits the description."   
  
"No, Harry's dad, James, was Head Boy along with Harry's mum, Lily, as Head Girl." Hermione said with a small smile.   
  
"Oh."   
  
Hermione rolled her eyes and looked back at the book. "For Ravenclaw, there were two seventh years, and they were both senior prefects, only one's a boy. Write down: Ashton Bankfort."   
  
"It's not him." Draco said in a decided manor.   
  
"Well, write it down anyway."   
  
"I'm telling you, it's not him."   
  
"Draco, just write it down." She snapped. Then she went back to looking in the book as he started to write. "Hmmm... In Hufflepuff there were quite a few. There was Weston Bridges, Theo Thorne, and Raymond Fossil. Wow, must have been a good year for Hufflepuff's Quidditch team..."   
  
"They haven't even been to the final since. They lost to Gryffindor that year. They had a brilliant seeker." Blaise muttered from where he was peering into a book. He made a face and hastily shut it and threw it into a book, then moved the whole box to the throw away pile.   
  
"Thank you Zabini for the Quidditch history update." Draco said smartly.   
  
Hermione glared at him and he started to scribble away at the paper again.   
  
"Ok, last house." Draco said making another column on the paper.   
  
"Right, Slytherin." She flipped the page and peered at the picture. All tall imposing figures that inspired fear. All except for one face. His blonde hair shone in the sun and he stared at the camera, neither smiling nor scowling, but he somehow didn't look as menacing as the other boys in the picture. He actually looked _nice_. She looked down at the caption and peered at the name. "MALFOY?!"   
  
Draco looked up from the paper where he was drawing out a Quidditch strategy. "What?"   
  
"No! This is a picture of your dad!"   
  
"Lemme see." He spun the book in his direction and peered at the picture. "Yeah, so?"   
  
"He actually looks _nice_." Hermione kept her voice to a whisper as if the mere mention of the idea would turn her to stone.   
  
"Oh heaven forbid a Malfoy ever even _look_ like he might give a hoot about someone other than himself." Draco spat. "Lucius wasn't always as bad as he became. Mum said it started the year they got married, right after they graduated."   
  
Hermione stared at the page. "I wonder what happened."   
  
"Your guess is as good as mine." Draco said spinning the book back in her direction.   
  
Hermione shrugged. "I guess we'll find out in good time." She peered at the list of names. "I guess we could include him on this list then."   
  
Draco didn't say anything, just scribbled the name down as the first name on the Slytherin list.   
  
Hermione stared at him. "What no biting remark about how we couldn't possibly be related? No scathing comment? Draco, you're going soft on me!"   
  
He only looked at her impassively.   
  
She shrugged and continued to read off names. "Reggie Flint, and Freddie Lestrange. Ewww...hope it's not either of those..." She made a face at the book.   
  
She shut it and put it aside. Then looked up at Draco. "Okay, what have you got?"   
  
"Ok, it's not anyone from Hufflepuff, they weren't rich enough. Its not Bankfort either."   
  
"How can you be so sure?"   
  
"Because Bankfort's gay. The only kid he has is adopted form Indonesia." Draco said moving down the list and crossing off names. It's not Longbottom or Lupin. Not Longbottom because your IQ is better that Longbottom Jr. can ever hope for, it's be a serious gene pool screw up if you two were siblings. And it's not Lupin because werewolves rarely have children ever, and when they do, they're usually lupine. There's usually a 1:100 ratio of human children to lupine children. Now, that leaves the Slytherins..."   
  
Hermione _did not_ like where this was going...   
  
Draco continued unaware of her distress. "Let's see... It can't be Flint, or your teeth would be just as bad as Marcus's and you'd be just as ugly too. Though your teeth used to a bit on the large side, they were never _that_ bad... though that'd be a sight to see... And you're not ugly by any standards."  
  
"Drakie, are you saying that I'm pretty?" Hermione said batting her eyelashes at him in a pansy like manner.   
  
"Of course he thinks you're pretty!" Blaise said looking up. "All b-" He suddenly stopped with a strange look on his face. He looked at Draco who glared at him, then he muttered, "Never mind," and went back to digging through a box.   
  
Hermione turned back to Draco with an expectant look. "What was that all about?"   
  
"Nothing." He crossed Flint's name off, only two left. "It can't be Lestrange either, he couldn't have kids, because of some freak accident in his sixth year. Bella's brat is actually the whelp of some random Russian wizard that looked like Fredrick."   
  
Hermione nodded then froze. "That only leaves-"   
  
"Lucius..."   
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**A/N:** Ok, that was really long… about nine pages… wow…   
  
Like I said earlier, I don't know when I'll update again, I'm not at home, and when I do get home on Friday, I'm babysitting the cousin from hell…so who knows… I'm trying my darndest to keep it up like every-other-daily. Haha, I like that…'every-other-daily' haha…   
  
Anywho… the reason these last two chapters got up so fast is because they were already done…like seriously…when I left the house yesterday, they were on a disk in my back pocket. Then I updated earlier, and now I'm doing it again!! Isn't it wonderful?   
  
And I'll try and slow down the action a little and put some more family time in…but I dunno if it'll be in the next chapter or what… It'll most likely be in the "Ginny" chapter after the next "Hermione" chapter.   
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	8. Queen Without a Country

  
  
**A/N:** Hello, hello, hello!!! Have fun reading!!   
Since I'm home now, Updates will keep coming, but I may have a babysitting gig al this upcoming week (it's Sunday for you peeps who hate calendars). I don't know though...I'll know in about an hour or so though...   
  
**Summary:** What's up with Harry? Why are Hermione and Ginny disappearing all the time? Who is this enticing new Gryffindor? And just where in all hells is Ron? Reincarnation is a strange and dangerous thing that toys with the present in hopes that the present will somehow turn out like the past, but will the past repeat itself in this occurrence, or will the reincarnation of the great King Arthur fail to save the world as we know it from a foe greater than any seen in this word yet?   
  
**Disclaimer:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.   
  


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And We Thought it Was the End   
  
Chapter 7   
  
A Queen Without A Country   
  


  
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-Ginny stared up at the tall stranger in horror. "Don't ever call me that again." She muttered staring down at her legs.   
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-_It had been only two days after he'd had her locked in the dungeons. She was shivering, cold, and sweaty with a fever.   
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-She didn't move when the door opened and the robed figure walked in. "He wants to see you." He said softly. "This time, just do what he wants. It'll be better for everyone…including the child in your womb."   
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-Now she moved. She reached up and latched onto his pants pocket and dragged herself up. "What do you mean?"   
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- "You're pregnant with my Lord's child. What did you expect? You wouldn't tell him where the other one was, so he created an alternative."   
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-She wobbled in her knees and found she couldn't stand. A sharp pain shot through her hip and she cried out. "What's wrong with my legs?"   
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- "He broke your hip so you couldn't get away." The man said holding her up.   
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- "Can't you fix it?"   
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- "I'd be killed instantly."   
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-She moaned and fell limp. He tucked an arm under her legs and hoisted her into his arms.   
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- "What does he want with me now? He has his child, what does he want with me?"   
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- "You will be his Chosen." The man's voice was quiet, but she could hear the worry in it.   
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-She didn't know what that meant, but she didn't ask as he had gone strangely quiet.   
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-He walked into her old room and sat her in an easy chair near the fire. "Are you alright? Do you hurt anywhere other than your hip?"   
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-She stared up at him through dirty sweat soaked hair. "Why are you being so nice to me?"   
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-He stared at her for a long moment. "Because you'll need all the help you can get here." He said. Then he stood and walked to the bell toll in the corner.   
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-Almost instantly, there was a low knock on the door.   
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- "Come in."   
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-The door opened and a slight girl of twelve years slid in quietly. She kept her strange silver eyes locked on the floor as she spoke. "You called for me sir?"   
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-He smiled softly at her. "Yes. I would like you to take care of this woman." The girl's face moved up and for a moment, her eyes locked with Ginny's.   
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-Ginny's mind clouded over and she felt rather than heard someone talking to her. **You have brought us salvation.**  
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-Ginny blinked and the girl was staring back at the floor. 'How strange…' She thought. The man turned back to her and smiled.   
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- "This is Korinna. She will be your personal maid. Whatever you need, she will get for you. If you find her unsatisfactory, tell me and I will deal with her."   
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-The girl's head snapped up and she stared directly at the man. "Father! Please! I-"   
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- "Be quiet!" He snapped. "I will not be father to insolent children!"   
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-She held in a sob and looked down at the carpet again. The man looked at Ginny, bowed, and left the room.   
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-The girl flinched as the door slammed shut behind him, then looked up at Ginny timidly. "What would you like me to do Miss?"   
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-Ginny stared down at the dirty sheets she was wrapped in and sighed. "A bath and new clothes would be wonderful." She said softly.   
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-She jumped as a large basin appeared in the corner, steam rising from the water and a clean gown and robe were laying on the bed.   
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-The girl, Korinna, helped Ginny from her chair. Ginny held onto the back of the chair before she collapsed.   
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- "What's wrong?" Korinna asked with evident worry.   
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- "I can't walk." Ginny gasped through the pain. "Bloody son of a bitch broke my hip…" She pushed herself off the back of the chair and with Korinna's help, wobbled to the tub. She used her hands to help her sink in and sighed. "Gods that feels great."   
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-Korinna took the soap and put it to Ginny's hair. And Ginny picked up a wash cloth. She cleaned her skin stopping every once and a while to stare in sadness at a bruise or a cut or a welt that had come from her beatings and Tom raping her. There were bite marks on her thighs and scratches on her breasts. Tears clouded her vision, but she blinked them away determinedly. 'He will NOT break me.'   
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-It was quiet for a while before Ginny started to talk.   
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- "So your name is Korinna?" Ginny said.   
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- "Yes Miss."   
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- "Is this all you do? Wait on people passing through?"   
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- "Sometimes Miss, but I don't think you're just passing through." She said bending down to pick up a small bucket by the tub. She filled it with water and dumped it over Ginny's head.   
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- "What do you mean?" Ginny asked swiping wet hair from her face.   
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- "I mean, Miss, that the Dark Lord means to make you his Queen."   
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-Ginny's eyebrows became one with her hairline. 'So that's what that means…'   
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- "I'll never be his wife." She spat vehemently.   
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- "Oh Miss, you must!" The girl was at her side in an instant. "Mother said the same thing and now she's…now she's dead!" She knelt at the side of the tub and held Ginny's hand. "Miss, if you care for the child that you carry, you must do it! You must!"   
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-Ginny stared at her for a moment, then stared down at their linked hands. Just out of the corner of her eye, she could see the girl's aura. It was a soft pink, but there were darker spots on it.   
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- "He's touched you too hasn't he?" She said softly.   
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-The girl's head shot up, but Ginny was still staring at their hands and inspecting her aura.   
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- "How did you know that?"   
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- "Your aura…"   
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- "You can see them too?"   
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- "Yes, ever since my first year…I was only eleven the first time he did it to me."   
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- "I was nine." Her voice was only a whisper and Ginny had barely heard it.   
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- "Is that why your mum wouldn't be his queen?"   
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-The girl nodded. "Father was so mad…He hasn't talked to me since…"   
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- "Oh." She moved her hands around in the water making the bubbles part like the Red Sea. That made her wonder if anyone was going to come to her rescue… She'd just have to be strong until someone came to save her.   
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-The girl, seeming to pick up on her thoughts looked her straight in the eye and said, "My Lady, no one will find you here..."_   
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-Ginny shivered and hugged her daughter close. "What do you want?" She asked him. "Why are you here?"   
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- "I swore to protect you, my Lady, until my dying day, and I intend to fulfil that promise." She said kneeling by her bed.   
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- "Well do me a favor and forget about it. I'm not your Queen anymore." She shied away from him and borrowed against the side board.   
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- "My Lady?" Another voice, this one small and whispery came from around the curtain and Korinna, the girl that had been Ginny's only ally in her times of trouble. Her hair no longer hung down to her knees in stick straight braids, but stopped just past her shoulders in soft, natural curls. Her eyes smiled brighter that Ginny had ever seen them and when she walked into the small alcove, she walked straight to her father and clung to his side affectionately. "How are you?"   
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- "I-I'm fine...thank you..." She shot a questioning glance at the man.   
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- "I have learned to forgive people of faults that they had no control over..." He said in a soft voice. "My healing powers have finally worked on myself." Then he gave her a small smile and she marveled at his face.   
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-She had expected him to look like all the others, big and buff and a bit brutal, but his face was young and soft. His eyes sparkled with life and his hair curled into his face. It was evident where Korinna got her good looks from.   
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-Said young girl suddenly gave a small gasp and started to dig around in the pocket of her robes. "Would you like to see a picture of my mamma?" She pulled out a small picture of a woman who was about seventeen, still a child... "This was the year mamma had me... Isn't she pretty?" She stood close to Ginny's side and sighed. Then she turned to Britannia and smiled. "You are lucky that you still have your mamma."   
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-Brit's arms wound around her mother's neck and she frowned up at Korinna. "Who are you?"   
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-Korinna smiled. "I am Korinna, I helped your mamma." She nodded at her father. "And that is my papa, he helped your mamma too."   
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-Brit looked up at Korinna, then looked away.   
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-Korinna stepped back to her father and looked at him expectantly.   
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-The man stood. "Right. My Lady-"   
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- "I told you, I am no longer your Queen. Do what you will with your life." She stared him down, knowing he could not go against the dismissal.   
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-Surprisingly he knelt by her side again. "My Lady, I cannot, will not leave you. My life was put into your hands to do with what _you_ will. I would follow you to the death if need be."   
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-Ginny could only stare at him. Then her thoughts started to go wild. _Ok, this is insane!! What kind of rules did they follow in Tom's mad head? Who did he think he was....BLOODY KING ARTHUR????? This isn't the middle ages for Godrick's sake!! We're nearing the year 2000! Y2K for pity's sake!!! Why won't he just leave me alone???_ Then he looked up and she caught the determined look in his eyes. "Fine..." She said. "Stay if you want. It makes no difference to me."   
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-He stood and smiled down at her, then took his daughter's hand and made to leave.   
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-As he reached the curtain, she stopped him.   
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- "I'm sorry sir, but what is your name?"   
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-To think for an entire month and a few days, she'd only addressed him as "Sir" and never by his name...   
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- "Tristan, my Lady, Tristan MacLaughlin."   
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-_Duh...shoulda known it was Scottish..._   
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-She nodded and he left.   
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- "Mummy?" Said Brit. "Who is he?"   
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-Ginny stared down at her daughter, then at the still swinging curtain. "My knight." She said.   
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-**Later that same day:**   
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-Ginny had waited until Brit had gone down for her nap before she rounded on Aya and Remus. "How _dare_ you!" She said glaring at the both of them. "How dare you assume that I wanted to see him!"   
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- "Ginny-"   
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- "Don't you Ginny me Remus! What? Wasn't what I've been through enough? Why am I still being tortured by these insistent memories? Why are you doing this to me?!" Her pupils were dilated and she seemed to star at someone not in the room. "Why are you doing this to me?!" She asked again. Tears began to leak down her face. "Why can't you just leave me alone? Let me die already!"   
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-Remus shook her by the shoulders. "Ginny! Ginny!" When she didn't respond to him, he shouted over his shoulder for the nurse. "POPPY! POPPY!"   
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-Madame Pomfrey cane running into the little alcove and forced a dreamless sleep potion down her throat. As Ginny slumped against the pillows, the nurse turned to Remus and Aya with a worried look.   
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- "I think we should move her to a private room... the one at the end of the infirmary." She said pointing.   
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-Remus nodded and lifted Ginny's limp form in his arms and walked the short distance to the private room. Laying her down, he looked around. It was more like a bedroom than anything else. The bed wasn't a hospital bed, but a four-poster canopy bed and there was a vanity and a desk and a window...she'd feel right at home here...good...   
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-He turned and stared at the two women by the door, one who had delivered him into this world and the other who had been his salvation... "I don't know what happened... She was talking to us one moment, and then the next..."   
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- "I don't think she's fully recovered mentally..." Aya said staring at the girl in the bed. "I think that in her mind, she's still locked in that castle with Him."   
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- "You might be right... What we need is something to bring her here, to put her mind at ease..." Poppy said.   
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- "Well...It could be...I was thinking that..." He paused not sure how they would look at it.   
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- "Spit it out boy!" Poppy said.   
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- "It's just... her family... they've been wanting to see her, maybe we could have them visit." Remus looked up at them.   
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- "I don't now Remus, I don't know that their reaction to her situation would be a healthy one..." Poppy said. "I know that they are dying to see her, but my concern is for Ginny..."   
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- "Come on Poppy, if things start going south, then we can pull them out."   
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-She sighed. "Fine! Far be it for me, you know, the _nurse_ to know what's best for her _patient_..."   
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-Remus seemed to ignore that comment from her lips. He smiled and hugged her. "Thanks Poppy. If that doesn't do it, I don't know what will."   
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-#$%%&3   
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-**A/N:** ARGH! I hate the way this chapter ended, but I couldn't think of any other way to close it up, so...yeah... im so very sorry that this chapter literally sucked ass.   
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-Next G-Chap: Ginny's family comes for a visit, but is the result what Remus and Aya were looking for?   
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-Next H-Chap: How does Hermione take to the news?   
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- Sorry for the weird markup...don't know what happened here...  
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- And sorry for the shortnss...but i just had to get this part out...i don't even like this chapter...it makes me hurl.  
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	9. Accepting Who You Are

  
  
**A/N:** I need my three reviewers to know that you guys are great! U have my heart!!!!! sob ur so great!!   
  
Now, for all the rest of you crazies put there who are reading and not reviewing...you hada better, or ill hunt you down!!!!!!!! Ill hunt you down and knife you in ur sleep....   
  
Ok...got a little crazy there...   
  
How could I possibly kill a person and I have serious probs regarding my whole spider-fright thing...   
  
Ok on with the show!   
  
In the chapter ahead: Hermione faces the challenging acceptance of her heritage, Blaise realizes something, and everyone goes for a shopping trip into Diagon Alley! This is going to be a bit long because I'm leaving for two weeks on Monday and I have some reading to get done before I leave, so I'm making up for that now.   
  
**Summary:** What's up with Harry? Why are Hermione and Ginny disappearing all the time? Who is this enticing new Gryffindor? And just where in all hells is Ron? Reincarnation is a strange and dangerous thing that toys with the present in hopes that it will somehow turn out like the past, but will the past repeat itself, or will it fail to save the world as we know it from a foe greater than any seen in this word yet?   
  
**Disclaimer:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.   
  


* * *

And We Thought it Was the End   
  
Chapter 8   
  
Accepting Who You Are   
  


  
  
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"No." Hermione's voice was quiet. "That's...that's just not possible..." She flipped through the book quickly. "That's – No.... We must have missed someone. We had to skip a page or something!" She was tearing the book apart in her frenzy to understand.   
  
Draco's hand touched hers gently. "Hermione, it's true."   
  
She glared at him. "How would you know?" She demanded.   
  
"The door to the wing. Only a person of Malfoy blood can touch it. Other wise, it would have shocked you."   
  
Hermione stood hastily and paced behind her chair. "I just...I don't... why would they... oh hell, I'm so confused." She let herself fall into the chair...then the tears started to come. Her head fell into her hands and she wept silently.   
  
Rachel looked up from the trunk she was rummaging through with a shout. "Holy hell! Hermione! Get over here! I found something you might want to look at."   
  
Hermione gave Draco one last look then sat down next to Rachel. "What is it?"   
  
"Look." She opened the trunk to reveal an array of children's toys.   
  
She picked one up and held it in her hands. "A real life baby doll! I used to beg my mum for one of these!" She turned the box over in her hands and read the card. _To my little Mia on her birthday, love father_.   
  
Hermione stared at the card and shook her head. "Impossible." She muttered moving onto the next toy. "Wow! A Barbie and Me Playhouse! I cried for days when my mum said no to it!" Again, the card read _To Hermione, from father, Happy Christmas._ She dropped the toy and rummaged through the rest of the trunk. Almost all of them were for her from Lucius! Most near the top were toys, but as she dug deeper, the presents matured. Soon, she was digging through boxes of jewelry and dress robes and books and notebooks and pricy things.   
  
Near the bottom of the trunk was a white box with a silver ribbon around it.   
  
Rachel picked it up and inspected the tag. "Hey Mia, this one's from just this past Christmas." She handed it to Hermione.   
  
Hermione peered at the card. This one was longer than the others, but still short. _To my darling Hermione, even though you are growing up, you will always me my little girl. Love Father._   
  
She frowned at the card and opened the box. Then she gasped.   
  
"What is it?" Rachel said leaning to look over her shoulder.   
  
Hermione pulled a length of fabric out of the box. "The... It's the dress!"   
  
"What dress?"   
  
**Flashback**   
  
_Hermione and Ginny were bundled up against the December cold. They walked down the streets of Hogsmede giggling at something they had just seen. Then Ginny gasped and pulled Hermione aside to look in a store window. "Hermione! Look at this robe!"   
  
Hermione gave the robe in question a glance, it was perfect for Ginny, its deep green would compliment her stark red hair.   
  
But Hermione's gaze was drawn to a robe that hung next to Ginny's dress in the window.   
  
The strapless top was cut in a corset fashion and the skirt had a simple cut. The ribbons tying the corset closet were a shiny white, the corset itself was a heavy green upholstery with woven roses and vines all over it, the skirt was a simple soft silvery green silk that she could see was soft to the touch. Over the dress hung a winter cloak of the same upholstery as the corset and it was lined with white fur and the same green silk as the skirt.   
  
Hermione pressed her face, red from the cold, against the gass of the window pane. "It's beautiful." She breathed. "I have to have it."   
  
Ginny peered at the tag hanging from the dress. "Mia, it's really expensive."   
  
"How expensive?"   
  
"Two hundred and eighty galleons."   
  
"Holy... but Merlin...it's gorgeous Gin!"   
  
"Yeah, but neither you nor I have that much money." Ginny said quietly. "Just forget about it Mia. Let's go to the Three Broomsticks and have some butterbeer. I'm freezing!" Ginny had grabbed her arm and tugged her away from the window, but for the rest of the winter season, that dress had remained in Hermione's thoughts. But when the girls had passed through Hogsmede again in the spring, the dress was gone, and when Hermione had –against Ginny's wishes- asked the saleswoman where the dress had gone, she had calmly responded that it had been purchased around Christmas._   
  
**Flashback End**   
  
Hermione shook her head. "This is beyond impossible." She replaced the toys she had pulled out, even the dress and the cloak.   
  
Draco was standing behind her. "No...no it's not..." He said quietly. "It all makes since now. Why he hated mother...why he hated me...why he always seemed the happiest when Christmas and your birthday came around...why he was always happy when you did something good..." He stared at her with a strange look.   
  
Hermione stood and stared at her three new friends. "No! I won't accept that! It's not true!" She stood hastily from the floor and sprinted from the room.   
  
Stopping at the wing doors she stared at the bronze handle. She reached out hesitantly and touched the cool knob...nothing...   
  
_What if he's lying...just to confuse you?_ Said the very illogical part of her mind.   
  
_Don't be stupid._ Said the logical part. _Why would he do that now after he's been so nice for the past couple of weeks_   
  
"Shut-up." She muttered to both sides.   
  
Then she ran out the house without grabbing a cloak or changing her shoes.   
  
She ran to the cliffs and took the rocky path down to the water.   
  
She climbed over the rocks and boulders and stood on the largest one. After a while, she sat down and brought her knees to her chest and sat there thinking.   
  
Lucius Malfoy... my father? But he was a death eater... one of the worst... This is horrible... What will Ron and Harry say? What will Ginny say? Why is this happening to me????   
  
Slowly, the events of the past month started o play in her head. Her brother's sickness, her parents' deaths, moving to the manor, becoming friends with people she thought were self centered gits, and now this...   
  
It was all too much to handle.   
  
She let her face fall to her knees and began to sob. **

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Blaise Zabini scowled as he walked round the perimeter of the Malfoy land. Why did they have to send him outside? It had been getting increasingly foggy all day and he could feel the beginnings of a slight drizzle hitting his exposed face and neck.   
  
Suddenly, the clouds seemed to part like the Red Sea and a torrent of rain fell on him.   
  
"And my life is beginning to stink like roses." He mumbled. Where was that stupid Granger anyway?   
  
He virtually started to ignore the rain and stopped at the cliffs. "She wouldn't have jumped..." But just to make sure, he peered over the edge of the cliff.   
  
There, in the churning white water was something blue... Hermione's dress! He watched as the tail end of the dress disappeared under the water and didn't resurface.   
  
Jumping into action, he raced to the path that led to the water and ran down the rocks, slipping and sliding every once and a while. He reached the rock farthest out into the water and called her name. "HERMIONE!"   
  
"What?" The voice came from behind him and he spun around to get a better look at her.   
  
She had done away with her dress, explaining its being in the water and her white shift that went under it clung to her skin. Her hair hung in sopping wet curls down her face and shoulders and her shoes and stockings were gone.. She was drenched from head to foot and looked like a drowned rat, a very breathtaking drowned rat, but a drowned rat nonetheless.   
  
"What is it Zabini, what do you want?" She asked staring up at him through her sopping hair.   
  
"I...I thought you had jumped." He said lamely.   
  
"Well that's silly." She said struggling to stand. Her bare toes gripped the rock and she faced him wither arms crossed protectively over her chest. "I would never do something so foolish, even if I was faced with such life changing information as I have recently come into contact with."   
  
Blaise stared at her dumbly and she stared back with a slight frown. "Zabini?"   
  
Blaise, still captivated with her soaking features said nothing.   
  
"Zabini are you there?" She asked again.   
  
Still she got no answer.   
  
"Blaise?"   
  
Suddenly He blinked, once, twice, three times. "You...You said my name..."   
  
Hermione gave him a smirk fit for a Slytherin. "Yeah, I did. You all right there? You kinda spazed on me."   
  
Blaise shook his head and smiled. "Yeah I'm fine." He removed his heavy cloak and placed it around her shoulders. "You however, need to get warmed up and dressed in time for the ball. I'm afraid your hair is lost cause."   
  
Hermione tugged the cloak close around her shoulders and shivered as she reached up to pat her hair. "No matter. I'll just wear it up with it straight..."   
  
He escorted her back to the house where Draco, Rachel, Narcissa and Haven stood in the entrance hall looking worried.   
  
"MIA!" As she walked into the hall, Haven attacked her with a tight hug around her waist. "I thought you'd died." He said tearfully.   
  
He lifted him in her arms and hugged him tightly. "Haven, love, I wouldn't ever do hat to you. You know that right?"   
  
He nodded and she smiled and kissed his cheek. "Good. Now, be a good boy and let Gretchen dress you for the patry." She indicated the young maid that stood just out of the family circle.   
  
Gretchen curtsied. "Come along young Master, there is much to do."   
  
Haven kissed Hermione's cheek and ran to Gretchen and then they were gone.   
  
Hermione turned to the other occupants of the hall. "I'm sorry I frighten you all. I never meant to stay out so long."   
  
Narcissa smiled. "It is understandable my dear." She beckoned to Hermione. "Come, there is something we must discuss. And we must get you into some warm clothes."   
  
Hermione wrapped in Blaise's cloak accompanied Narcissa up the stairs and into her room. Narcissa sat on the large couch near the fireplace at one end of the room and Hermione sat opposite her in a large wing-backed chair. Blaise conjured a series of blankets and covered her with them all until she looked up at him with a scowl. "Blaise Zabini, are you trying to make me an early Christmas dinner?"   
  
He looked confused for a moment. "No, of course not."   
  
"Then quit it with the blankets, I'm roasting here!"   
  
He smiled sheepishly and backed off. "Sorry."   
  
Hermione's silent and often invisible maid Sarah suddenly appeared next to her and removed a few of the blankets. Then she was gone again, But Hermione could hear her bustling around getting her things ready for the ball.   
  
Narcissa smiled at Blaise, and then at Rachel. "My dears, would you mind if I talked to just my son and Hermione for a moment?"   
  
"Not at all dear aunt!" Rachel said standing and lugging Blaise from the room. The door shut behind them and Narcissa sighed.   
  
"Mother? Are you all right?" Draco asked from where he was standing behind Hermione.   
  
"Yes, I'm just fine." She smiled at the both of them. "You two. You both look so much like your father."   
  
Hermione unconsciously shivered. "I don't know if I look all that much like him at all."   
  
"Nonsense. Draco fetch me that mirror and that photograph of your father from the mantle piece." Narcissa said waving a hand in that direction.   
  
When Draco gave her both of the frames she placed them in Hermione's lap. "Have a look." She said mysteriously.   
  
Hermione frowned at Narcissa, convinced that the woman was certifiably insane, but looked into the mirror anyway to humor her.   
  
Then she gasped. "Good lord..." She murmured. She brought both frames closer to her face and looked closer. The same high cheekbones and stately air in which they held themselves. The same placement of the eyes nose and mouth. Their bleeding ears were even the same. Except for the hair color (which had darkened to a medium brown in its present drenched state but was a dirty blonde dry) and the eye color (hers were her mothers honey brown and his a quicksilver gray), she was his female replica.   
  
Hermione flipped around and studied Draco's face intently. If she thought about it, they could easily have been twins... Suddenly she spoke, "When's your birthday?" She demanded.   
  
Draco looked a bit surprised. "September 22, 1980, why?"   
  
Hermione's eyes widened. "That's impossible." She breathed. "I thought... I thought..." She looked at Narcissa quickly and said, "How?"   
  
Narcissa was no longer smiling and she looked sad. "Lucius needed an heir. I wasn't able to give him one."   
  
Hermione stood and the blankets and cloak fell away from her, but she didn't care. "How could you do that?"   
  
Sarah immediately appeared and tried to throw a black silk dressing gown over Hermione's shoulders, but she moved just in time to miss it. Sarah clamored for the gown and tried again, and missed again.   
  
Draco, who had averted his eyes spoke without looking at Hermione. "Pardon my asking, but do what?" He said.   
  
Hermione whirled to face him. "Draco, you said your birthday is the twenty-second of September in 1980."   
  
He nodded still not looking at her. "Yes."   
  
"My birthday is the same day."   
  
Now his gaze locked on her face. "What?"   
  
Hermione started to pace back and forth in front of the fireplace heedless of her state of dress. Sarah trotted along beside her trying to give her the dressing gown, but Hermione was ignoring her.   
  
"Don't you understand?" Hermione said. "You're not only my brother you're my _twin_. Mum and Lucius split us up because he needed an heir, but mum wanted to keep me and he wasn't going to take both f her children away at once." She froze and looked at him. "Think about it. All the animosity between us these past years could easily be translated as sibling rivalry." She shook her head with a contemplative look. "It's no wonder we're always head-to-head for the top position in classes... we could pass for mirror images if my hair was blonde and my eyes gray." She sat heavily on a low stood near the fireplace. "Wow." She shoved a hand through her tangled hair. "This is all very strange."   
  
Sarah finally dropped the robe over Hermione's shoulders panting for breath. Then she shoved a fist through the air triumphantly and went back to getting Hermione's things together.   
  
Draco fell into her vacated chair. "You said it."   
  
Narcissa was smiling faintly again. "I do hope that you won't mind joining the family dear." She said to Hermione. "You are after all a Malfoy by rights."   
  
Hermione frowned into her lap. The Lucius Malfoy outlined in her mother's diary was one so different from the one she'd known in her years in the wizarding world. Maybe he had changed. But no matter what had happened, she couldn't hold it against him- even if it was kind of bogus that he'd taken Draco and not her, she was so much more intelligent after all. She looked up at Narcissa with a smile. "I'd love to."   
  
Narcissa clapped her hands happily. "Oh splendid! Now, the matter of introducing you into society can be easily taken care of, you will accompany Rachel tonight as she is introduced. It is only fitting."   
  
Hermione frowned. "But won't everyone be opposed to me all-of-a-sudden showing up and claiming to be Lucius's daughter?"   
  
"Not in the least." Narcissa said. "Everyone always did know that Draco wasn't Lucius's only off spring, no one knew just who it was though."   
  
Hermione nodded slightly.   
  
Narcissa smiled and turned to her side and picked up two boxes. She opened one and pulled out a large jewelry box. Then she turned back to Hermione smiling brightly. "This was what I wore when my parents introduced me to society." She said. She handed Hermione the box with a huge smile. "Go on, I'd like for you to have it."   
  
Hermione accepted the box with a smile. "Thank you." She opened it slowly to reveal a tiara with sparkling diamonds. "Oh, it's beautiful! I couldn't possibly accept it!"   
  
"Nonsense." Narcissa said. "I had planned to give it to my daughter, and you have always filled that role whether you knew it or not."   
  
Hermione smiled again. "Thank you."

* * *

****  
  
Several hours later, Hermione sat in her room completely dressed and ready, aside from the fluttering of butterflies in her stomach.   
  
Rachel was at the window watching the guests arrive. "Wow...There's so many people out there..."   
  
Hermione squeaked and covered her face with her hands. "Oh lord..." She breathed.   
  
"Are you alright?" Rachel said placing a gentle hand on Hermione's shoulder. "You don't have to do this you know..."   
  
Hermione stood and fiddled with her tiara. "No, I do have to do this. I have to be string from the first right? Just because I'm a tad nervous doesn't mean anything, right?" She pushed her words out in one short breath. She sighed at Rachel who was back at the window, then turned to look in the full-length mirror.   
  
Her dress robes that she'd purchased in Diagon Alley were beautiful to say the least. Neither she nor Rachel had been able to find anything that they'd liked and had their dresses custom designed and made by the boutique's designer.   
  
Hermione's dress was strapless and simple. It was made of an elegant Chinese red silk with designs of fire birds all over it. The skirt fell around her legs silkily in layers of fabric, but it flowed like water around her ankles and if she did a spin it flared out around her for three and a half feet on either side. A small train extended from her waist and trailed behind her on the ground. Her hair was swept into a smooth bun in the center of the tiara and a few curls graced her hair line behind her ears and around the nape of her neck.   
  
Rachel's dress was very Scarlet O'Harra, just without those hideous hoops. It was made of a deep purple chiffon which suited her naturally tanned skin quite nicely.   
  
She tucked a flyaway curl back into the bun and made sure that it stayed, then she checked the mirror and smoothed out a crease over her knee and smiled apprehensively. "I..I think I can do this." She said softly.   
  
"Good." Said a voice from the door, "Because it's your time to shine."   
  
Hermione whirled around with a squeaky "What?!" And faced the boys at the door.   
  
Draco looked slightly bored and Blaise looked excited. Hermione knew that Blaise, for the first time in two weeks, was going to see his five younger siblings, four of which were girls.   
  
Draco shrugged. "Mother says that it's time to come down now." He looked slightly uncomfortable at the fact that he was still calling Narcissa "Mother" when she clearly was not. But he shrugged it off and nodded in the girls' direction. "Are you ready?"   
  
"And how!" Rachel said excitedly latching onto Blaise's arm.   
  
"I guess." Hermione said softly placing a hand in the cork of Draco's arm like Narcissa had taught her. They would go down the House Stairs, as the grand stair case was called, one couple on each side, then the boys would go into the ball room and Hermione and Rachel would enter together.   
  
"You scared?" He asked her softly as they went down the hall."   
  
"Yeah, kinda." She whispered. "But I-I'll be alright once I get down there." She took a deep breath and smiled shakily. "Thanks for worrying though...brother." She said smiling.   
  
He chuckled. "You didn't seem as shocked as I thought you would about that... I mean, aside from running off and you know, tossing your clothes to the storm and coming back to the house in naught but your skivvies and Blaise's cloak-"   
  
She stopped short and interrupted him. "Wait, you _knew_?"   
  
He shook his head and stood just beside her. By now they were standing near the top of the stairs, but around a corner so they couldn't be seen from the foyer. Blaise and Rachel were standing just around the corner waiting for them.   
  
"Yes, and no. Father told me that I had siblings, but I never would have thought that it was you." He looked out the window to his side and seemed thoughtful. "But I'm kind of glad that I'm not Narcissa's son...Her family is kind of strange..." Then her turned to her and wrapped her in a brotherly hug. "And I'm glad you're my sister too. Good luck tonight."   
  
She hugged him back and smiled al nervousness gone. "Thank you Draco."   
  
"No problem." He took her arm again. "Now, are you ready sister dear?"   
  
"As I'll ever be..." She said softly.   
  
Then they were down the staircase and at the door faster that Hermione could think.   
  
"Good luck." Blaise whispered to her. Then they had slipped through the door and were gone.   
  
Hermione could hear the house elf at the door shushing the crowd in the room.   
  
"Ready?" She asked Rachel who suddenly looked ill.   
  
"I have to be, don't I?"   
  
Then the majestic double doors suddenly swung open and both girls glided into the room, paused at the top of the staircase, then walked slowly and gracefully down the short flight of stairs into the ball room.   
  
Narcissa stood near the bottom of the stair case and she magically magnified her voice. "Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to introduce my niece, Miss, Rachel Anne Caddo."   
  
Rachel gave the crowd a graceful curtsey and a decent smile.   
  
Then the crowd went quiet again, though there were a few whispers that could be heard. "Who is that other girl with Rachel?" "Why is she wearing Narcissa's tiara?" "Who is she?"   
  
Narcissa smiled. "And also introducing, the long awaited, Miss Hermione Rose Malfoy."   
  
Hermione dropped into a graceful curtsey and gave the crowd a brilliant smile as she straightened. Everyone clapped for her too and she could have sworn that she'd heard her brothers and Blaise whistling somewhere in the room.   
  
Then a waltz started up and Draco was at her side in an instant.   
  
"May I have this dance my Lady?" He said with a false French accent.   
  
"Yes, of course." She said with a superior tone. She gave him a small curtsey and offered him her hand. Then he twirled her off onto the dance floor.   
  
Narcissa stood and watched them with a happy motherly air. She held onto Haven's hand so he wouldn't go wandering into the punch in his white suit. He was the perfect counter part or her brilliant white ensemble.   
  
Her smile faltered a bit when a voice was heard suddenly near her side.   
  
"Good evening Narcissa dear." Said a simpering voice.   
  
She turned and faced a rather heavy-set woman with thick arms and legs who was dripping in jewelry. Her robes were quite tacky and her makeup made her look like a clown. She gave her a rather forced smile. "Why, Lady Parkinson, I wasn't aware that you were still in the country."   
  
Pat Parkinson's face contorted into a frown, but it was gone as soon as it had appeared.   
  
Narcissa knew that it was a low blow for her to address Dick Parkinson's impending arrest, but she could not stand the woman or her disgusting daughter.   
  
"Oh dear, dear Aunt Narcissa!"   
  
_Speak of the bloody devil._ She thought. But she turned an even more forced smile upon Pansy Parkinson. "Hello child." She said.   
  
"Who is this little one?" Pansy whined looking at Haven and trying to hug him.   
  
He evaded her and clung to Narcissa who picked him up, he was, after all, quite small for his age, rather the size of a two year old. He rested his head on her shoulder and hid his face in her neck.   
  
"His name is Haven Malfoy." Narcissa said. "He is Rose's brother." They had agreed to cal Hermione by her middle name until someone recognized her. Hermione had thought it would be quite fun to see everyone's reactions when they found out who she was.   
  
"He is just precious!" Simpered Pat.   
  
"I say," Said a new voice. "She looks just like her father, but she has her mother's hair and eyes."   
  
Narcissa turned wearily to this new person, then smiled brightly.   
  
Seraph Zabini was, without a doubt, Narcissa's closest friend in the world. They had grown up together, suffered through pregnancies together, and suffered through marriages together. She had been sorted into Slytherin, while Narcissa and Helen had been sorted into Gryffindor.   
  
They embraced around the children in their arms and smiled at each other, both disagreeable Parkinsons completely forgotten.   
  
A cluster of small children swarmed around Seraph's legs and Narcissa knew each of them by name. "Hello my darlings." She said bending to embrace them all at once.   
  
There were two variations of hair color in all of the Zabini offspring: raven black and chestnut brown. The youngest at five months, Persephone, would have her mother's chestnut waves and brilliant blue eyes. Next was the haughty two-year-old Althea who again took after her mother. Following her were the twins, Leah, who, at five years old, was an exact (female) replica of her father with her black hair and violet eyes and Theodore who had his mother's blue eyes and chestnut hair, but his fathers air and love of horses. Narcissa addressed them all, and introduced them to Haven. Theodore gave Haven a scrutinizing look and seemed to accept him.   
  
Then she straightened and looked the oldest Zabini girl in the eye.   
  
Evan Rachel Zabini at sixteen, was most often shy and quiet, choosing to hide behind her thick and long veil of chestnut hair. But her violet eyes sparkled with mischief and Narcissa was sure that the moment her back was turned, Evan's skirts would be hitched up around her knees and she'd be riding the stables wildest horse through the garden maze at a break neck pace. It wasn't that anyone doubted Evan's ability to handle Thunder, I was just unladylike. In fact, the entire Zabini clan were horse people. It was a fond saying that each of the children was born on a different horse.   
  
At any rate, Evan smiled and gave Narcissa a graceful curtsey. "Aunt." She said softly, her voice just the right volume.   
  
"Evan my dear, you have grown into a woman and I was not there to see it!" Narcissa said embracing her. "Blaise will be pleased to see you."   
  
"Where is he?" Evan asked excitedly, breaking her concentration on her manners. Her Italian accent was light, but could be heard just the same.   
  
Narcissa smiled. "But I see that there is some work yet to be done..."   
  
Evan blushed and curtseyed. "I beg the sincerest apologies." She sad softly.   
  
Narcissa smiled and gestured towards the window with her hand. "Last I saw he was over there with your cousins."   
  
Evan quickly thanked her and walked away with the whole troupe in tow including Haven.**

* * *

**  
  
Hermione was in the middle of the dance floor with Draco. They'd been talking quite companionably for several minutes about their futures as siblings when a light tap on Draco's shoulder had them pausing.   
  
"May I cut in?" Asked a familiar voice.   
  
Hermione peered around her newly found brother in surprise. "Edward? Edward!" She flung herself into his arms for a nice hug. Then remembering herself, she stepped back and gave him a little curtsey. "Edward Richter, would like for you to meet my brother, Draco Malfoy. Draco Malfoy, our cousin Edward Richter."   
  
Edward frowned at her. "Brother?"   
  
"I'll explain it as we dance." She said grabbing his arm. "Bye Draco!"   
  
He gave a bow and she a curtsey.   
  
Minutes later She was dancing with Edward who was nodding in comprehension. "Ok, I get it now." He said as she finished telling him about the past few weeks. "Really, your mum got pregnant with you before she married Uncle Richard and your brother and you were separated at birth because your father needed an heir. Said father was forced to marry a woman he didn't love because of undisclosed reasons. Then years later, your mum and your dad meet up while she's shopping with you in Diagon Alley and a week later she finds out that she's pregnant with Haven. Wow."   
  
"You can say that again." She said. "But surprisingly, I didn't take it as bad as I should have. Somehow I always knew that Richard Granger was never my father. We were just too different in looks and manners that it would have been impossible."**

* * *

**  
  
An hour later Draco, Evan, Blaise, Hermione, Rachel, and Edward were standing off to the side of the dance floor when they were approached by Pansy Parkinson.   
  
"Oh Draco, dear." She simpered glaring at Evan. "I am disgusted to realize that your _sister_ is no one but the _mudblood_. How could you be so fooled." She said with a disgusted glance in Hermione's direction. "Your mother even let her wear her tiara. What would Lucius say?"   
  
Draco had frozen. He was sure that ice was flowing through his veins instead of blood. "What did you say?" He said with no little hidden fury.   
  
Pansy, seeming not to notice Draco's state of anger continued. "What's she even doing here? Do you hear that mudblood? You don't belong here."   
  
But to her surprise, Hermione hadn't even blinked. She kept right on with her conversation with Evan and Edward about the new thoroughbred in the stables, Rusty.   
  
Draco stood in front of Pansy who suddenly seemed aware of his anger. "Get out." He said softly with his anger barely controlled. "Get out before do something rash."   
  
She gaped at him for a moment before turning on he heel and flouncing away.   
  
Draco tuned back to the grup with his features schooled into place.   
  
Blaise frowned at him. "You alright mate?"   
  
"I'm fine." He said calmly. Then he gave Evan a deep bow, "My lady, would you do me the honor of this dance?"   
  
She curtseyed and they were off.   
  
Then Edward asked Rachel to dance and they were gone too.   
  
Blaise looked at Hermione debating whether or not to ask her to dance. Finally he bowed low in front of her. "My lady, would you do me the honor of dancing with me?"   
  
"I would be obliged." Hermione said with a brilliant smile."   
  
Then they too were off.   
  
Hermione felt different in Blaise's arms than in anyone else's. It was like she belonged there, like she fit there perfectly, like they were two pieces of a puzzle once lost and low found. It was an incredible feeling and when the end of the song came, she was sorry to let him go. She curtseyed deeply as he bowed and as they straightened their eyes caught.   
  
Hermione was entranced by his eyes. They were such a beautiful violet... She could just see them beneath the masses of thick black hair that hung in his eyes sexily.   
  
_Wait SEXY??? BLAISE?? Oh heck, why not?_ She smiled at him and he smiled back.   
  
She was amazed at what she could read in his eyes. Friendship, hope, confusion, fear, and dare I say it... ... ... ...love?   
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**A/N:** Ok, this chapter kinda sucked, but the story's going right along, so bear with me folks. If i made any mistakes, don't be afraid to point them out.  
  
In regards to my choice of plot line, please, refrain from flaming, anything hotter tat the lightblub in the lap on my desk will be used to light a fire under your ass. Don't doubt me. I'm tired and im dangerous...  
  
I will probably try and update sometime next week if I can get my hands on my father's laptop, but i doubt it...   
  
A/N2: OK, I know that I kinda skipped the trip to Diagon Alley and London, but that's for next time.... and I'm exhausted. It's like 1am, and though it's not unusual for me to stay up this late reading and writing, one can only endure so many days of this before...well... I dunno...   
  
Next Ginny chapter: The Weasleys come for a visit... uh oh...   
  
Next Hermione chapter: The girls go for a shopping spree in Diagon Alley and muggle London and the boys go buck wild on a couple of bucking broncos.   
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